Organ transplants - to donate or not (3)

Alternatives

Dong, the cardiac surgeon, also expresses the hope that more people will change their attitude toward donating organs and understand the meaning of such behavior and its impact on others.

Meanwhile, not every organ for a transplant necessarily needs to come from a human, some people are already looking to animals for the solution.

Historically, doctors have made attempts to replace failing human organs with those of animals such as pigs or monkeys, but these xenotransplants, or inter-species transplants, have failed for unknown or unresolved reasons.

In recent years, there have been some breakthroughs. In the mid 1990s, scientists in the US were pioneers with a procedure that used pigs as the most likely organ choice among animals.

Now, with the development of genetic technology, researchers have been looking for ways to genetically modify donor animals to prevent organ rejection, and more genetically modified pigs have become available, with human genes, to avoid a human immune system reaction.

On May 8, 2013 , doctors at the Xijing Hospital in Xi'an, Shaanxi, announced that they had planted part of a liver from a genetically altered pig to a monkey.

Back to the future

Wang Wei, a xenotransplant specialist at No 3 Xiangya Hospital in Hunan province, said xenotransplant is a promising way to solve the problem of donor organ shortages and that it could save a lot more lives.

However, Liu Xiaocheng, a prominent cardiac surgeon at Teda International Cardiovascular Hospital, in Tianjin, has said that he doesn't believe transplanted animal organs or tissues can save the lives of humans, at least not for near future, because of the immune system reaction.

So, no matter what the outcome of this work on xenotransplants, for the present, those waiting for an organ transplant will still have to rely on the kindness of a complete stranger.

As for complete strangers, Qi Dan, the wife of the deceased trucker, says she knows her husband would be happy with the family's decision.

"When a person dies and is cremated, there's nothing left but ashes to mourn. Why not do something good and donate the organs. That's one way to keep on living."

And, more philosophically, "My husband's lived a short life, but a meaningful one. He saved five people. Isn't that enough?"