Kidney Failure

• If someone's kidneys stop working, there are 2 treatments - regular dialysis or a transplant
• The kidneys remove waste substances from the blood
• If the kidneys don't work properly, waste substances build up in the blood and you lose your ability to control the levels of ions and water in your body. Eventually, this results in death
• People with kidney failure can be kept alive by having dialysis treatment - where machines do the job of the kidneys. Or they can have a kidney transplant
• The kidneys are incredibly important - if they don't work as they should, you can get problems in the heart, bones, nervous system, stomach, mouth, etc.
• Dialysis machines filter the blood
• Dialysis has to be done regularly to keep the concentrations of dissolved substances in the blood at normal levels, and to remove waste substances
• In a dialysis machine the person's blood flows between partially permeable membranes, surrounded by dialysis fluid. It's permeable to substances like ions and waste substances, but not big molecules like proteins (just like the membranes in the kidney)

  
• The dialysis fluid has the same concentration of dissolved ions and glucose as healthy blood. This means that useful dissolved ions and glucose won't be lost from the blood during dialysis. Only waste substances (such as urea) and excess ions and water diffuse across the barrier

  
• Many patients with kidney failure have to have a dialysis session 3 times a week. Each session takes 3-4 hours. Plus, dialysis may cause blood clots or infections

  
• Being on a dialysis machine is not a pleasant experience and it's expensive for the NHS to run. However, dialysis can buy a patient with kidney failure valuable time until a donor organ is found

  
• Kidney transplants are a cure, but can be rejected
• At the moment, the only cure for kidney failure is to have a kidney transplant
• Healthy kidneys are usually transplanted from people who have died suddenly. The person who has died has to be on the organ donor register or carry a donor card (provided their relatives agree too)
• Kidneys can also be transplanted from people who are still alive (as people have 2 of them) but there is a small risk to the person donating the kidney. There is also a risk that the donor kidney can be rejected by the patient's immune system
• The patient is treated with drugs to prevent their immune system from rejecting the kidney, but it can still be rejected
• Transplants are cheaper (in the long run) than dialysis and they can put an end to the hours patients have to spend on dialysis, but there are long waiting lists for kidneys