3 patients in an intensive care unit are examined by the resident doctor... one patient has brain damage from a stroke, another had a heart attack and severely damaged his heart muscle, and the third has a severely damaged liver from a crushing injury in a car accident. All three have stabilized and survived, but only one will have full functional recovery through generation. which one and why?
2006-09-22 05:59:07 · 6 answers · asked by Erin D 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
The liver can regenerate if even as much as 10 percent of functioning liver is left. I have seen them surgically amputate the entire right lobe of the liver, which is about 70% of it.
The heart patient will survive and may have some functional life left, albeit with the damage there. There have been some studies and clinical trials recently where stem cells are micro-injected into the damaged heart muscle, with encouraging results.
The head injured patient will not get significantly better.
2006-09-22 06:03:54 · answer #1 · answered by finaldx 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The liver (I didn't know this until now...how interesting!).
"The mammalian liver has an astounding capacity to regenerate after injury, and animals (including humans) can survive surgical removal of up to 75% of the total liver mass.[1] Depending on the organism, the original number of cells is restored within as little as 1 week and the original tissue mass within 2 to 3 weeks.[2,3] This process can occur repeatedly, indicating a very high organ-regenerative capacity, which is in contrast to most other parenchymal organs such as kidney or pancreas.[4] Most of this rapid regeneration is due to mitotic division of preexisting differentiated liver cells, including hepatocytes, bile duct epithelium, and endothelial cells. For this reason, the role of liver stem cells in liver maintenance, regeneration, and injury responses has been controversial.[5-9] Nonetheless, many of the disagreements regarding the function of hepatic stem cells can be reconciled by considering the different experimental conditions that have been used to study liver regeneration. Liver stem cells can be defined in several different ways or assays. These classifications include (1) the cells responsible for normal tissue turnover, (2) the cells responsible for the response to partial hepatectomy, (3) the cells responsible for progenitor-dependent regeneration, (4) transplantable liver repopulating cells, and (5) the cells that result in hepatocyte and bile duct phenotypes in vitro. Current evidence strongly suggests that different cell types and mechanisms are responsible for organ reconstitution depending on the type of liver injury. In addition, tissue replacement by endogenous cells (= regeneration) must be distinguished from reconstitution by transplanted donor cells (= repopulation)."
2006-09-22 06:05:18 · answer #2 · answered by rosecitylady 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"the liver" is your answer.
OK u have three cases the first one is that of a brain stroke.second one is that of a heart attack and the third is a damaged liver.
basically there are 3 types of cells
-labile cells
-stable cells
-permanent cells
labile cells are those which have the capability of "regenerating through out life".examples are surface epithelium...etc"brain cells(which includes neurons),cardiac cells,and liver cells do not come under this category"
stable cells are those which have a low level of regeneration or a low power of regeneration,but they can replicate.examples are ""hepatocytes"" -the liver cells
but permanent cells cannot regenerate because they do not have the power of regeneration.examples are""brain cells,cardiac cells""
so i hope u found an answer to your question
hepatocytes -can regenerate because their cells are of stable type-capable of regenerating so only this organ can have complete recovery through regeneration
cardiac cells and neurons(brain cells) are of permanent type and so cannot regenerate and do not have full functional recovery..
OK now? take care bye
2006-09-22 06:10:48 · answer #3 · answered by sabi 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The one with the liver that has been damaged.
Heart cells do not regenerate, thus this eliminates the one with the heart attack and tissue damage.
2006-09-22 06:03:29 · answer #4 · answered by chemistry_freako 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The liver can "grow back."
Aloha
2006-09-22 06:00:46 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Do your own homework...this is easy. Which tissue heals itself?
2006-09-22 06:01:32 · answer #6 · answered by pknutson_sws 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋