7 ms·

I'm a pessimist and when I look at the graft half-life in your article, it puts a wet blanket on things. For example, half of kidney transplants from a decease

I'm a pessimist and when I look at the graft half-life in your article, it puts a wet blanket on things. For example, half of kidney transplants from a deceased donor fail in 7-9 years. That's not a lot of time. A lung gets you on average less than five years. I would be interested in whether it's survivorship bias, or lack of in this case.

maxerickson 5y ago
I don't really understand your formulation here. How is your view about the benefit of organ transplantation pessimistic? Patients living 7 years instead of dying in short order is a pretty good trick for doctors to be working. For pessimism to make sense, there needs to be some better option than that available.
- snapetom 5y ago
  Did you read the original article? The context of this is in regards to dementia. A dead 40 year old, regardless of whether they had a transplant at 30 or not, is probably not going to have dementia.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    There's a reasonable sample of over 65s.
hpagey 5y ago
The average lifespan of deceased donor kidney is 10 to 15 years and for live donor is around 15 to 20 years. People normally get multiple transplants throughout their lives.
- jxramos 5y ago
  I thought all donors had to be living with a beating heart, are deceased non-heartbeat donors viable for some subset of organ transplants? How does this work exactly?
  - short12 5y ago
    Organ donation is based on recently dead people. Heart, liver, kidneys, eyes etc are all up for grabs as soon as possible I learned yesterday that a heart has a shelf life of about 6 hours and liver is 12
    - jdsully 5y ago
      Where I am being on an organ donor list also makes you eligible to be used as a cadaver. I’m not comfortable being prodded by med students but would give an organ.
    - klipt 5y ago
      Fun social engineering fact: countries that make organ donation (on death) opt-out instead of opt-in have much shorter waiting lists for organs. The USA could save thousands of lives by switching to opt-out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Opt-in_versus_opt-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Opt-in_versus_o...
      - njarboe 5y ago
        Funnier social engineering fact: If it's legal for people sell their kidneys, wait lists for kidneys goes to zero[1]. Too bad only one country in the world does that. Another fun fact. The US government spends more on dialysis than the budget for NASA. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_trade_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_trade_in_Iran
        whimsicalism 5y ago
        Presumed consent would effectively end waiting lists for most organs.
        ricardobeat 5y ago
        From news sources I found, it looks like the system in Iran works exactly as one would expect: the poor and desperate end up with one less kidney while not significantly benefitting from the trade. Which is precisely the reason such sales are outlawed worldwide.

maxerickson 5y ago

I don't really understand your formulation here. How is your view about the benefit of organ transplantation pessimistic? Patients living 7 years instead of dying in short order is a pretty good trick for doctors to be working. For pessimism to make sense, there needs to be some better option than that available.

snapetom 5y ago
Did you read the original article? The context of this is in regards to dementia. A dead 40 year old, regardless of whether they had a transplant at 30 or not, is probably not going to have dementia.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  There's a reasonable sample of over 65s.

hpagey 5y ago

The average lifespan of deceased donor kidney is 10 to 15 years and for live donor is around 15 to 20 years. People normally get multiple transplants throughout their lives.

jxramos 5y ago
I thought all donors had to be living with a beating heart, are deceased non-heartbeat donors viable for some subset of organ transplants? How does this work exactly?
- short12 5y ago
  Organ donation is based on recently dead people. Heart, liver, kidneys, eyes etc are all up for grabs as soon as possible I learned yesterday that a heart has a shelf life of about 6 hours and liver is 12
  - jdsully 5y ago
    Where I am being on an organ donor list also makes you eligible to be used as a cadaver. I’m not comfortable being prodded by med students but would give an organ.
  - klipt 5y ago
    Fun social engineering fact: countries that make organ donation (on death) opt-out instead of opt-in have much shorter waiting lists for organs. The USA could save thousands of lives by switching to opt-out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Opt-in_versus_opt-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_donation#Opt-in_versus_o...
    - njarboe 5y ago
      Funnier social engineering fact: If it's legal for people sell their kidneys, wait lists for kidneys goes to zero[1]. Too bad only one country in the world does that. Another fun fact. The US government spends more on dialysis than the budget for NASA. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_trade_in_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_trade_in_Iran
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Presumed consent would effectively end waiting lists for most organs.
      - ricardobeat 5y ago
        From news sources I found, it looks like the system in Iran works exactly as one would expect: the poor and desperate end up with one less kidney while not significantly benefitting from the trade. Which is precisely the reason such sales are outlawed worldwide.