I've heard that your body replenishes all of its cells every 4 years. If this is the case then surely the donor cells of say - a donor heart - would be swapped out after 4 years (before they perished) and therefore all cells of the donor organ would be replaced by native cells. You wouldn't need to take imuno-suppressent drugs anymore as your body would not attack native cells. Just wondering!
2006-08-12 23:39:48 · 8 answers · asked by jonnes_david 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
You DO have to take immuno-suppresant drugs for the rest of your life (my grandmother, for example, has a transplanted kidney and takes hers). And tissue in the transplanted organ isn't lifeless with dead cells. It must be living tissue or else it isn't fit for transplant. Thus, the cells of organ will continue to replicate. Eventually, the organ will be comprised also of host cells derived from stem cells, but due to the exponential replication of cells, donor cells can and probably will always remain. And even if the donor has the same blood type as the host, cells in the tissue can still have identifying antigens that the host's immune system can target. As time progresses, organ rejection becomes less likely but it is always a risk.
2006-08-13 03:22:13 · answer #1 · answered by kittykorruption 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Personally, I would not want to take that chance. Say you finally did get a transplant. If you were on a list, or maybe a family member gave you their organ, like a kidney. Would you really want to take that chance of the body rejecting it and then having to get on a list again and wait. Thank you very much mother, brother, sister, or whoever. Until this rejection thing is mastered, I think it wise to just do what the doctor tells you to do. If and when it is determined that you do not have to take the medicine, then is the time I would not take it.
2006-08-12 23:59:10 · answer #2 · answered by shardf 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
if anybody has a transplant he/she gets an organ from other person and ite biochemicals, antibodies and immune factors with it. so his/her immune system starts to reject the froreign organ that's why he/she will has to take immuno-suppressant drugs to escape from this condition of rejection. as this condition of rejection remains for a long time that's why it seems that the person having transplant have to take these drugs for a long time but we can't say life long.
2006-08-12 23:55:57 · answer #3 · answered by swati 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i think like your body can't make a new heart or grow back any part of your body just in embryo state , so , i don't think the transplanted heart will ever not be self cell,so because it is a foreign
body our immunologic system wants to eliminate it
this is a theory i suppose
2006-08-13 01:32:17 · answer #4 · answered by qwq 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You must take them for the rest of your life to stop the body rejecting whatever transplant you have had.
2006-08-13 02:00:41 · answer #5 · answered by jean c 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't believe you DO have to take immuno-suppressive for the rest of your life: only until the body learns to accept the foreign tissue.
2006-08-12 23:46:52 · answer #6 · answered by crispy 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Maybe it's a DNA thing. They always remain.
2006-08-12 23:42:43 · answer #7 · answered by JeffE 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Please see the webpages for more details on Transplant rejection.
2006-08-12 23:58:44 · answer #8 · answered by gangadharan nair 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋