Video Transcript
Kidney failure can be treated with
a long-term solution involving a medical procedure. What medical procedure can be used
to treat a small amount of kidney-failure patients?
Kidney, or renal, failure occurs
when the kidneys stop functioning properly and the blood in the body does not get
filtered like it should. There are two main treatments for
kidney failure: dialysis and kidney transplants.
Kidney dialysis is when a patient
is hooked up to a machine that filters the blood in place of the failing
kidneys. Dialysis is not limited in the
number of patients who can receive it because it is performed by an apparatus that
is easily accessible and in wide supply. However, a patient with kidney
failure will typically need to undergo dialysis three to four times a week, often
for hours at a time. This can be a big disruption to the
patient’s daily life.
An alternative treatment for kidney
failure is a kidney transplant. This is when a healthy kidney of a
donor is removed and implanted in the body of a kidney failure patient. Remember, humans have two kidneys,
so unlike some other organ transplants, kidneys can be donated by living donors. The new donor kidney in the host
takes over the function of the failing diseased kidneys.
Kidney transplants are severely
limited by the number of donors available. There are significantly more
patients in need of kidney transplants than there are available donors. This means that the medical
procedure that can only be used to treat a small amount of kidney-failure patients
is a kidney transplant.