Kidney Failure – If one kidney of a person is damaged or its nephrons fail to function he can still lead normal life with one fully functional kidney. The question is what happens if both the kidneys fail to work? The answer is very simple that the person will die, if the proper medical treatment is not given. For this purpose the patient can be treated with a kidney machine (dialyser) and or by a kidney transplant.
kidney machines (dialyser)
There are two methods of dialysis, i.e mechanical removal of nitrogenous waste from kidneys.
arterial blood dialysis (haemodialysis)
In haemodialysis an artificial kidney machine called dialyser is used. This machine consists of a tank of sterile dialysis fluid surrounding long dialysis tubing. Arterial blood from the person with kidney failure is pumped slowly through the dialysis tank via dialysis tubing. The tank contains a dialysis membrane between the blood and the dialysis fluid. Urea and other wastes diffuse from the blood through the dialysis membrane into the dialysis fluid. Blood is withdrawn and send back to the patient by a shunt installed in a fore arm’s vein (fig. 13.8)
Kidney machine is used by the patient twice or thrice a week. This process of removing the wastes from blood takes about four to five hours.
The process of arterial blood dialysis (haemodialysis)
body cavity (peritoneal) dialysis
in peritoneal or body cavity dialysis the sterile dialysis fluid is pumped by a portable machine into the abdominal peritoneal cavity which is the space between the tut and the abdomen. The dialysis fluid which is drawn by another pump leading the fluid to waste.
Kidney transplant
As the process of dialysis needs to be repeated after every few days and is rather unpleasant, therefore the patient can also be given an alternative treatment that is kidney transplant. In this type of treatment the kidney of a healthy person is transplanted to the patient. The new kidney is connected to the patient’s blood and urinary system. The kidney may be donated by one of the closest relatives. The tissue and body chemistry of the donor should be similar to that of the patient. When the donor is unrelated or belongs to some other blood group the problems like tissue rejection may occur and the patient’s body destroys the donated kidney.
In order to get best results in the kidney transplant, the tissue and body chemistry of both the donor and patient must be much similar.
Some other kidney disorders produced as a result of kidney stones or an accidental injury to the kidney may lead to the serious fall in blood pressure.
The kidney stones can be diagnosed by X-rays and sonography by ultrasound machine. The renal surgery for removal of stones is now being replaced in some cases with the lithotripsy (breaking of stone with ultrasound vaves).