The Way To Stop Discrimination

The Way To Stop Discrimination On The Basis Of Race Is To Stop Discriminating On The Basis Of Race.

End-stage Liver Disease Refers To A Liver That's Failing, And A Very High Percentage Of Those Livers Are What We Call Cirrhotic, Or The Patient's Liver Has Become Cirrhotic, And What Cirrhosis Is, Is The Scarring Of The Liver Tissue.

There Is A Risk Of Death Associated With Donating A Piece Of Liver. It's About One In 500 For The Risk Of Death. The Risk Of Death Of Donating A Kidney Is About One In 3000, So This Is A Riskier Operation Than Donating A Kidney. The Stakes Are Usually Higher For The Recipient Of The Transplant Because Unlike Kidney Failure, Where You Have A Dialysis Machine, In Liver Failure We Don't Have That Kind Of Machine That Allows A Patient To Survive Until They Can Get A Cadaver Organ.

There Are Many Different Causes Of The Scarring. Viruses Are Common. Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, What We Call Autoimmune Diseases Where The Body Attacks The Liver Itself Such As Primary Biliary Cirrhosis Is An Autoimmune Disease; Sclerosing Cholangitis Is An Autoimmune Disease; And So Those Diseases Where The Liver Is Being Destroyed By Either The Virus Or An Autoimmune Disease, It Can Only Scar, And Why It Doesn't Regenerate Has To Do With The Fact That There Is This Ongoing Scar Tissue That Blocks That Regeneration.

When We Think About Living Donor Transplant, What We're Banking On Is The Ability Of The Liver To Regenerate Itself. Now, It's Not The Same Sort Of Regeneration We Think About With The Starfish Where We Cut Off The Arm And It Grows A New Arm. With The Liver, What Happens Is The Remaining Liver Gets Bigger, And Your Body Knows The Size Of The Liver That It Needs, And When It Recognizes That There Is Not Enough Liver, It Sends Nutrients And Signals To The Liver And Says "get Bigger."