What Does This Mean For You? The successful surgeries add an exciting new option for women with cancer and ovarian disease. Women, who earlier couldn’t hope to conceive and bear children, now can. The idea of using a transplanted ovary to restore fertility, or even simply for hormone production, is promising for women.
Dr Modi opines, “The operation is unique. Women have two ovaries and donating one won’t affect the donor’s fertility nor her hormonal levels. She will be able to live normally. On the other hand, the recipient becomes a normal woman.”
On The Flip Side The rate of success of an ovarian transplant is not 100 per cent; there are chances of rejection of the tissue and infection. Also, post-operative management is crucial. The woman needs to take immuno-suppressive drugs for almost a year following the operation. Of course, transplantation is a difficult procedure because it involves legal issues as well. It cannot be denied that an ovarian transplant offers women a ray of hope where there was none.
Conditions requiring ovary transplant # Absence of ovaries # Cancer # Premature menopause # Diseased ovaries due to tuberculosis or endometriosis (a condition of the uterus)
Turner’s Syndrome Approximately one in every 2,000 female babies has Turner’s Syndrome. Children with Turner’s Syndrome can gain height by being administered injections of human growth hormone before their growth cycle is completed. Also, orally-administered replacement sex hormones at the appropriate age will promote pubertal development.
TAKE STOCK

# Statistically speaking, one donor body can benefit 20 to 60 people by either improving the recipients’ lifestyle or, in some cases, giving them life itself.
# Organs can be harvested while the donor is alive or posthumously.
# The success rate of transplantations is 80 per cent.
# Patients awaiting transplants have to go through a union government agency which reviews the lists sent by hospitals. A thorough physical and psychological check-up will be done on both donor and patient before the removal and transplantation operation.
BE A DONOR

Donate blood: Any healthy person can donate blood once every six months and there are people who have donated as many as 60 times in their adult years.
Get under your skin: Skin donations can help burn victims. Self skin grafts can help if the burns are not more than 50 per cent. If the burns are too severe, healthy skin from a cadaver can prevent disfiguration and help patient live a normal life.
Kidneys to give: We have two kidneys, but can manage normally with one. Fifty per cent of kidney failures occur due to uncontrolled diabetes leaving the victim with two options. One, dialysis (blood purification using machines) for the rest of their lives. Two, as a permanent solution, a kidney transplantation. Dialysis is expensive.
It also means visiting the hospital thrice a week for four to five hours at a time. The situation is worse when the machines are not always available as there is a long waiting list. A kidney transplantation, in the long run, is the cheaper and better option, but remember there are long waiting lists. Close relatives like a father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister can be potential donors.
Organ donation is an emotional issue for both patient and donor. Sometimes, the patient feels guilty of depriving a dear one of one of her organs. At other times, the patient grows to love the donor more
Patients awaiting transplants have to go through a union government agency which reviews the lists sent by hospitals. A thorough check-up of both patient and donor is conducted before the operation
Got comments or questions e-mail us at femina@timesgroup.com with ‘health — organ donation’ in the subject line.