Artificial_Organs

Artificial Organs A new phenomenon in the fields of medicine, ethics, and bioengineering is the making and using artificial organs. An artificial organ is simply put a man-made device that is surgically implanted or integrated into, a human being to replace a loss function, for the purpose of restoring a specific function or a group of related functions so the patient may return to as normal a life as possible. The replaced organ doesn't necessarily have to be related to life support, but often is. The development of such artificial organs is not something new; scientist, doctors and many other professionals from various backgrounds have played with the idea and attempted to create better artificial organs. According to (Bionics, 2010) the very first artificial organ attempt was in the year 1885 by M. Von Frey and M. Gruber. These men built and used the first artificial heart-lung apparatus for organ perfusion studies. Perfusion is the method of trying to preserve the organ for transplant. Frey and Gruber were not the last to make an organ and put it to use. Eric Sableman PhD a neurosurgery bioengineer (Sableman) states that many artificial organs have been created, including a bladder, heart, kidney(dialysis), lung (well not really, he was talking about the iron lung, personally in my opinion that’s not an artificial organ),and joints of various body parts like a knee replacement. Dr. Sableman also spoke about the many benefits of a person having an artificial organ or body part implanted. The one, only and best reason: extension of life. He also noted that with each artificial organ implant there are many circumstances which promote new research, ideas, and solutions. Some of the other benefits are; life support to prevent imminent death while awaiting a transplant (artificial heart). Dramatic improvement of the patient's ability for self care (artificial limb). Improvement of the patient's ability to interact socially (cochlear implant) Cosmetic surgery after cancer or accident. Much more research is being done beyond life preservation in this area of bio med such as constructing and installing an artificial organ to give humans abilities which are not natural such as the areas of vision and memory. Seems far fetching or out of a science fiction movie but it is not. One success was achieved in 2002 when a British Scientist, Kevin Warwick, (Warwick, 2004) had a 100 electrodes fired into his nervous system in order to link his nervous system into the internet. With this in place he carried out a series of experiments including the control a robotic hand over the internet, a form of extended sensory input and the first direct electronic communication between the nervous systems of two humans. Although very advantageous artificial organs come with more problems than solutions and many of these problems haven’t even existed yet. With technology growing at such a rapid rate it’s very hard for laws, medicine, and ethics to catch up. One of the most basic and common predicament with artificial organ transplant (Kolff, 1955) is fibrous encapsulation. This is when the body produces its own tissue that attaches to the implanted organ and covers the organ with scarring or fibrous tissue. With the artificial heart (Sableman) states in testing labs the animals after one year died of cardiac insufficiency. He goes on to say that allotransplants (one human to another) have better results for the transplant recipient but human transplant organs are never available in sufficient quantity that artificial organs are needed to meet the demands. Although the likely hood that the patient will die before receiving a human donation. Another con of artificial organ is the all to common joint replacement surgery. Joint replacement is an elective procedure with many risks and complications. Some of the complications are blood clots, pain, medications after the surgery, recovery time, and anesthesia. After surgery (depending) on the patients age there is no benefit to having let’s say for example a knee replacement. For many months after the surgery the patient will be in pain, constant trips to the E.R and or primary doctor. The patient will need medication either for pain for preventing blood clots. They will also need physical therapy. They will walk with a cane or crutches. For the elderly patient that have had knee, hip or other joint replacement surgery when and if ever will they truly benefit from the new organ considering the healing process for the elderly and life expectancy. Another issue is body rejection of the organ. To pacify the body’s immune system it is pumped full of drugs like cyclosporine which have the side effect of lower the immune to the point that the patient can easily become sick and ultimately die. Artificial organs are indeed a great invention, the possibilities of man and machine working together is a wonderfully magnificent co-existence. The use can and does help human kind in tremendous ways, but at what cost.“When we look at medical practice in retrospect, commonplace things and practice that seem obvious now to us where never obvious at the time of invention. (Menno, 1967) References Bionics, P. (2010, August 12). Artifical Organ History. Retrieved August 18, 2010, from project bionics : http://echo.gmu.edu/bionics/exhibits.htm Kolff, W. (1955). The Artifical Kidney-Past, Present and Future. New England Journal of Medicine , 1:1-7. Menno, A. J. (1967). An Evaluation of the Radical ArterioVenous Fistula as a Substitute for the Quinton Shunt in Chronic Hemodialysis. American Society for Artificial Internal Organs , 62-76. Sableman, D. E. (n.d.). dartmouth.edu. Retrieved august 18, 2010, from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~engs05/syllabus/sabelman.eric.html Warwick, K. G. (2004). Thought Communication and Control: A First Step using Radiotelegraphy”, . IEE Proceedings on Communications , 185-189.