Organ Transplant

Organ Transplant – General Information

An Organ Transplant means the moving of  a whole or partial organ from a body to another (or from a donor on the patient’s body), in order to replace the recipient’s damaged or failing organ with a new, working one from the donor site. The organ donors can be living or deceased (also named cadaveric).
There are several types of Organ Transplants that include:

Organ Transplant – Symptoms

The immune system is the body’s defense against foreign invaders such as bacteria or viruses and unfortunately the immune system can not make the difference between an invader and a new organ, this is why rejection happens. The rejection can happen without being noticed and can be found on a normal doctor visit. Here is a list of the most common symptoms of the rejection that can appear after an Organ Transplant:

The kidney transplant recipients may experience:

The liver transplant recipients can experience the following symptoms:

The pancreas transplant recipients can experience the following symptoms:

Before starting the treatment with Thymo patients who had an Organ Transplant usually receive acetaminophen, diphenydramine, and a steroid, and after starting the treatment the doctors will watch closely the vital signs and the blood counts, if it gets too low the dose will be adjusted. The antibody-mediated rejection, also known as humoral rejection, is an indirect recognition of the new organ. The B cells of the immune system recognize only part of cells from the transplanted organ and they start to produce new antibodies against the organ. This type of rejection may also be diagnosed after a biopsy and the treatment for it is CMV IgG, rituximab and steroids. If it does not respond to these treatments then plasmaphoresis may be needed, in order to remove the antibodies.
The CMV IgG, also known as cytomegalovirus immune globulin, is used in the treatment of rejection and it work by enabling the antibodies to attack the transplanted organ. It is usually infused into the veins. The common side effects are:

The dose of this medicine will be increased slowly and the vital signs watch closely by the doctors and if the side effects appear the treatment is slowed down or even stopped for a period of time.
Rituximab is used to prevent and treat a rejection; it works by killing the B cells and it is infused in the veins. The common side effects include:

Before starting the treatment with Rituximab patients who had an Organ Transplant usually receive acetaminophen and diphenhydramine and their vital signs will be closely watched by their doctors.