In a move that could bring relief to needy patients in Telangana and better regulation of transplants, State-run organ donation programme Jeevandan will soon include tissues too.
Health authorities here believe tissue donation has the potential to improve the quality of life of a large number of recipients, as it usually does not need matching and is useful in a variety of ways. Some of the tissues that can be donated include corneas, bones, tendons, heart-valves, veins, arteries and even skin.
Regulating transplants
Jeevandan officials acknowledge that the lack of guidelines for tissue donation and transplantation had become a problem, with corporate hospitals in Hyderabad already transplanting arteries and heart-valves. Top doctors feel there should be fool-proof guidelines for transplant centres that want to utilise veins, arteries and heart-valves of brain-dead patients for transplantation.
“We are seriously planning fool-proof guidelines for tissue donation under Jeevandan. Already, I have spoken to top health authorities about it and there is an urgent need to introduce tissue donation for the sake of patients and also as a tool to regulate private hospitals,” says Jeevandan’s in-charge G. Swarnalatha.
Doctors say donated veins can be used in patients needing coronary artery bypass surgery, a routine heart surgery conducted by numerous hospitals here. Donated veins can be used to repair damaged heart vessels and restore blood flow to save lives, especially high-risk groups like diabetics with a history of heart ailments, they explain.
For cases of burns and trauma, and even to protect the body from infection and to take up plastic surgery, donated skin is essential. Doctors point out that donated skin can also be used for mastectomy reconstruction among breast cancer patients.
“We are also in talks with our own plastic surgeons and bone specialists at NIMS to begin the tissue donation programme under Jeevandan,” Dr. Swarnalatha said.
Doctors say donated bones and tendons from brain dead patients can be used to replace or reconstruct tissue destroyed during cancer treatment.
