• Question: is it possible to keep someone alive for a long long time by justing giving them a heart transplant and a few organ transplants?

    Asked by ayywin to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 16 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      I suppose the brain is the most important thing for you being alive… so in principle if you could replace all the tasks of the body it could be done.

      You’d need to pump in a suply of oxygenated blood – replacing the heart and lungs – with enough nutrients for cells to make repairs – replacing the stomach. Horemones would be imprtant to produce and supply too.
      You’d need to provide an immune system, to fight off any infections the brain acquired.

      You’d then need to take away all the used blood, with the dead cells and waste products inside it, filter and clean it – like your liver and kidneys, then return it to the system.

      But if you could do all that (and probably more), why not…

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      In principle, yes, although having an organ transplant is a huge, huge ordeal for anyone to have, even if the rest of the body is healthy. The body’s first response to a new organ is to fight it, as the cells are recognised as being from somebody else. This means the entire immune response is suppressed, opening up the possibility of infection.

      If you replaced multiple organs at once, this risk would increase as well, and in all likelihood you would die of an infection.

Comments