For my current event I read the article “New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor” by Gina Kolata. Currently the waiting list for getting a kidney transplant is tens of thousands of people long, and many never get a transplant because they cannot find a match. A new study done by the New England Journal of Medicine has successfully been able to alter a patient’s immune system, so an incompatible kidney can be used. Those patients were more likely than those on a waiting list, or people who got kidneys from the deceased to live past eight years. The method used is called desensitization. It can significantly decrease the time spent waiting for a kidney, and on dialysis. About half of the
100,000 people in the United States waiting for a kidney transplant have antibodies that will attack transplanted organs, and almost 20 percent will accept virtually no kidneys. Some people give up on finding a kidney altogether, and just resort to dialysis.
Desensitization involves filtering antibodies out of the patient’s blood. The patient is then administered different antibodies to provide protection, while the body tries to make more. For an unknown reason regenerated antibodies are less likely to attack a new organ. If there are still troubles with the regenerated antibodies, the patient will be treated with drugs that destroy white blood cells that have the potential to attack the new kidney. Some of the drugs have yet to be approved for desensitization, and it runs at a steep $30,000. Transplants cost $100,000, but it is still significantly cheaper than dialysis, which costs $70,000 a year for life. Desensitization may also be used for live, and lung transplants, but it has yet to be done. The study looked at 1,035 across the country that had an incompatible donor, and the same number of people on a waiting list, and people who got kidneys from competitive diseased donors. After eight years 76.5% of the desensitization patients were alive, 62.9% on who got a matching donor, and 43.9% still on the waiting list.
This new study that proves the effectiveness of desensitization can vastly improve the lives of anyone with kidney failure. The waiting lists for kidney transplants are very long, and at this point for some people their search for a compatible kidney is hopeless. With desensitization people who otherwise would not have gotten a transplant now can. It can extend the lives of many people that would have had to live them on dialysis.
This article taught me a lot about the process to obtain a kidney transplant, and what it is like to wait for a kidney. It was well written, and the story at the end made it more personal. Everything was explained simply, and the author addressed most of the questions I had initially. I think it would have been better to include more details about the study earlier in the article. It would have also been nice to know how long the average person lives on dialysis, or after they get a kidney transplant from a deceased match, and how long they expect a person that goes through desensitization will live. They did not address any long term effects, or possible negative side effects of desensitization. Overall the article was informative, and simple.
Kolata, Gina. "New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Mar. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/health/kidney-transplant-desensitization-immune-system.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0>.
Allegra, this was an awesome choice for an article! You did a great job of explaining the process of desensitization, making it clear and relatively easy to understand. Also, your use of statistics to compare the desensitization patients against transplant patients and patients still on the transplant list were very supportive to your argument. Lastly, you also did a very good job of explaining the relevance of this discovery to the world.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to have quotes from the article in your summary just to hear the author’s voice a little more. Other than that, this was a very well written piece and a very interesting choice.
Transplant lists are known for being a nightmare. The amount of people in need of a kidney is shocking. If we were able to perform this process and not have to wait for people to die and donate their organs then we could save a lot of people from dying on the transplant list.
Ford Neild March 10, 2015
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Dear Allegra,
I felt that, overall, you explained the article in very concise manner without skipping over any of the essential details, as many people often do when summarizing. First, you were able to support your claim by inserting statistics and facts from the article, something that many people struggle with in these current events. Prior to reading your summary I would have never guess that someone could use a kidney that belongs to an incompatible donor type and your statics helped me consider this exciting possibility. Second, you described the scientist’s viewpoint in a very interesting way that held the reader's attention. Often people do not sound passionate when arguing scientists opinions, but you did a fantastic job of that in this description. One reason you were able to do this is through the use of the quote,”Often patients are told that their living donor is incompatible, so they are stuck on waiting lists.” It helped add a scientist's description that further captured the reader and added a new perspective. Thirdly, your descriptive vocabulary showed real depth of understanding on your part and added additional detail that helped to create a clear image of this previously confusing article.
Though, overall this article was very well written, there is room for improvement yet. Previously, I had commented that your descriptive vocabulary was intelligent and descriptive, however, for many of these words, they were too complex. To fix this, I recommend putting in parentheses the definition of the word. For example, I was not familiar with the term, dialysis. After doing personal research I found that dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood and is used primarily as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with kidney failure. In your relevance paragraph, you consistently mention how this new method of making incompatible kidneys compatible will help countless individuals. I was disappointed that you did not give specific personal examples of peoples whose lives were impacted significantly by this treatment. A personal tone could further pull the reader into your writing and make a very scientific article more digestible. If these were not mentioned in the article, I recommend doing independent research in order to fix this issue.
From your summary I learned a lot. Specifically, I was interested with how the regenerated antibodies did not attack the previously incompatible kidneys. Personally, my uncle had kidney failure and had to struggled to find a compatible donor due to the long wait line, so this article concerned me deeply. As previously mentioned, prior to reading this article I would have never guessed that by removing antibodies from the patient's blood, one could desensitize the regenerated bodies to foreign objects such as kidneys. More importantly this helped me realize a much broader truth: despite our seemingly deep understanding of science, we still have a lot to learn and breakthroughs are still happening everyday.
Kolata, Gina. "New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Mar. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
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Allegra,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your review of “New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor” by Gina Koolata. This article is a great choice because this is an area of study that has received a lot of scientific focus lately; specifically on donating and/or creating functioning organs. I liked how you included many specific statistics to help back up all of your points and give the reader more information about the topic. I also liked how you cited specific scientific journals to make your article more factual and research based which makes it a more accurate and reliable source. I also thought you did a very good job at describing the relevance of this article and the importance of something like this to the tens of thousands of people that are forced to wait years if they are lucky to get a new kidney that matched. Though for many kidney failure is manageable because of dialysis, it is definitely difficult and not as effective as a working kidney. I liked how you provided background information about their methods with this procedure, what steps are taken and how often it works. I also liked how you went into detail about how many people cannot accept a kidney without this treatment. This review was overall very well written and thought out and I thought you did a good job at displaying your thoughts in a descriptive yet concise manner.
I felt that the only problem with your review was a lack of description of Dialysis. I think adding description of what it is and the effects it has on people using it for long periods of time. It would help support your claims for the relevance of the transplant. Otherwise the article was very well done and I couldn’t find any other problems.
Overall I really enjoyed reading your review and was especially interested by this topic because I find all of the scientific advancements in usable, working, transplanted organs intriguing and something like this bodes well for the future of transplant surgeries in other areas. It was interesting to learn about an advancement which I always thought was impossible because the leading problem in transplants is finding a match. do something for people who put themselves in harm's way to protect us.