Organ Transplants in China Risky

By Kim Rahn

Staff Reporter

October 24, 2004

While a growing number of patients undergo organ transplantation in China due to a lack of domestic organ donations, many of them are found to suffer side effects such as complications, immune rejection, or even death, according to the Korean Society of Transplantation on Saturday.

The medical society said a total of 236 Korean people had organ transplant operations in China from 1999 to August this year in its survey on 24 domestic medical centers conducting organ transplants.

Two patients received organ transplants in China in 1999, 13 in 2000 and 2001, 24 in 2002, and 73 in 2003. The number has represented a 62-fold increase for the last six years, with 124 patients alone receiving the surgery this year as of August.

By organ, 139 cases were kidney transplants, 94 cases were liver and three were pancreas.

The society suspects the actual number of patients may be larger than reported if it was to include those who died in China during or after the surgery, patients currently being hospitalized in the country and those who did not answer the survey.

However, more than half of the 236 patients were found to have suffered side effects, while eight patients, or 3.4 percent of the total, died after coming back to Korea.

Seventy-six people, or 32 percent of the surveyed, suffered infections or complications from the transplantation surgeries, while other 34, or 14.4 percent of the total, suffered an immune rejection of the transplanted organ.

In Korea, the percentage that patients get complications after organ transplantation is under 3 percent and the ratio of immune rejection is also under 10 percent.

``The high percentage of side effects reflects insufficient examinations before transplantation. Some people received organs infected with hepatitis C and malaria,'' Kim Sang-joon, director general of the transplantation society, said.

The society also suspects most of the organ donors are executed criminals, with 32 percent of the patients not receiving information on the donor of their organs. It also analyzed the high ratio is partly because those with late-stage cancer, with whom Korean doctors have diagnosed transplantation is impossible, are forced to opt for transplantation in the foreign country.

``The nation doesn't have any controls against such problems of organ transplantation in China,'' Ha Jong-won, associate professor of Seoul National University Hospital said.

``To prevent patients from choosing risky operations in China, we have to prepare measures to urge Koreans to donate more organs, such as simplifying the organ transplantation procedure and promoting transplantation of brain dead patients,'' Ha added.

Some 6,700 people are waiting for organ transplantation in South Korea as of this month, while only 1,400 transplants have been conducted, according to the Korean Network for Organ Sharing.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr

Copyright © 2004 Hankooki.com.

This article posted November 24, 2004.