Re: Fifty years of history

December 6, 2003

Hi Cy,

Thanks so much for that 50 year history. I'll tell you, it made me count my

blessings that I am alive in such a time as this!

December 6, 2003

Hi Cy,

Thanks so much for that 50 year history. I'll tell you, it made me count my

blessings that I am alive in such a time as this!

December 6, 2003

Hi Cy,

Thanks so much for that 50 year history. I'll tell you, it made me count my

blessings that I am alive in such a time as this!

December 6, 2003

Hard to believe it's been 50 years since the first one. Things have improved

for sure, and not just with transplants, but dialysis too. Many of the

nurses I see at the dialysis centre are relatively young, but that's still

old enough to have experienced dialysis very differently than how it is

today. Even in the 80's, a dialysis treatment had to be much longer than it

is today. These days, it's relatively short in comparison. For example, I'm

on for 3-1/2 hours, but a few are shorter, like 3 hours, and most are 4

hours. Only a very few need longer than that. 20 years ago, that could

easily be 8 to 12 hours, because the artificial kidneys just weren't as

efficient. There is one man I know there, on PD actually, who has PKD. Now,

PDK is a hereditary kidney disease that is passed on from one generation to

the next. Sometimes there are whole families on dialysis - parent, brother,

sister, cousins, etc. Anyway, this man helped his father with *his* dialysis

when he was younger, and before the disease caught up with him. Even just

one generation ago, like that, the hemodialysis setup took up an entire

room, and it lasted pretty much the whole day. It was quite an operation. A

lot of the misconceptions about dialysis are based on the treatment how it

used to be, rather than how it is now.

On the transplant side of things, it's also so much better now that it's not

the same thing at all.

Even treatment of chronic kidney disease has made great advances just since

1990. Sure, people still end up on dialysis or needing a transplant because

a cure remains elusive, but they are much healthier when they get there,

thanks to better pre-dialysis care, better medications, etc.

I'm always amazed when I look at the pictures of old dialysis machines in

the waiting room where I go for dialysis. They look like contraptions from a

enstein movie.

Pierre

Fifty years of history

> Hi guys,

>

> One of the docs on another list I subscribe to noted that we're coming up

on

> te 50th anniversary of the first successful kidney transplant. Since

we've

> been lucky to have so many transplants scheduled for this season, I

thought

> some folks might be interested in a bit of history. This history was

> originally provided by Dr. Kim Solez. Looking at all the very recent

> advances, it reminds me of Pierre's comments as to how much treatment has

> changed!

>

> Cy

>

December 6, 2003

Cy,

Thanks for the review of transplant history. It is amazing how things have

progressed and will progress in the next few years. My son¹s transplant was

done at the University of Colorado Hospital, and because Starzl started

there, a lot of the early history of transplantation occurred there. You

really feel the history in the transplant unit as they have plaques on the

walls documenting a number of early milestones. The first and second longest

surviving living-related kidney transplants world-wide were done there in

1963 and 1964. A woman from our church donated a kidney to her son at

University Hospital 30 years ago, and he¹s still going strong. Her other son

(polycystic kidney disease) has gotten 3 cadaveric transplants in roughly

the same time frame.

Betsy

December 6, 2003