New technologies used for transplanting vital
organs
UNOS understands how essential
communication technology is to the transplant community. Without the ability to share, deliver and
update data in real time, the process of organ donation and transplantation
doesn’t function. No longer is information transmitted by phone and fax, but
instead through specialized database platforms that deliver vital information
securely and instantaneously. As information technology evolves, UNOS continues
to develop proprietary, secure, online-based systems to place organs
efficiently and collect essential data to improve the transplant field.
A key
technology application within the system, Donor Net®, electronically
manages organ offers by collecting and filtering data before sending offers to
hospitals with compatible transplant candidates. Specialized algorithms take
into account a broad spectrum of data and vital statistics related to both
donors and the potential recipients. This system allows the rapid and efficient
consideration of organ offers, which can lead to more lifesaving organs being
accepted and transplanted.
·
The demand for organ
transplantation is likely to increase in the next decades despite the advances
in medicine and technology; this consideration will play an important role in
weighing how technologies other than transplantation can be developed and
applied.
·
Among the various
approaches to replacing organs, the use of pluripotent stem cells, especially
those generated from the individual needing treatment, has the appeal because
in principle the cells have the ability to form any organ and are
histocompatible with the individual needing treatment.
·
One key challenge to
using stem cells for organ replacement is determining how to coax the cells to
form a structure of sufficient size and function to serve the individual
needing treatment.
·
A challenge
potentially eclipsing the technology will be determining whether and how
society will meet the cost of applying new approaches to organ replacement.
BY: Khadheeja Zuyyina (ACFS-1)
