Kidneys are the organs in most demand across the country according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
However, the most prominent organs that are traded illicitly are the kidneys, with WHO estimating that 10,000 kidneys are traded on the black market worldwide annually, or more than one every hour. In Nigeria, the most trafficked organ is the kidney.
Waiting lists
patients. As of 2022, the organ with the most patients waiting for transplants in the U.S. was kidneys, followed by livers.
The kidney is the most commonly transplanted organ. More than 16,000 kidney transplantations were performed in the U.S. last year.
Lungs are the most difficult organ to transplant because they are highly susceptible to infections in the late stages of the donor's life. They can sustain damage during the process of recovering them from the donor or collapse after surgeons begin to ventilate them after transplant.
Tissues such as cornea, heart valves, skin, and bone can be donated in case of natural death but vital organs such as heart, liver, kidneys, intestines, lungs, and pancreas can be donated only in the case of 'brain death'.
You'll be surprised as to how much you could lose and still live. You can still have a fairly normal life without one of your lungs, a kidney, your spleen, appendix, gall bladder, adenoids, tonsils, plus some of your lymph nodes, the fibula bones from each leg and six of your ribs.
In theory, if you could harvest every organ and chemical in your body, you could make a cool $45M! But in reality, Medical Transcription estimates, the average price of a human dead body is more likely to fetch around $550,000 (with a few key body parts driving up the price). So how does that all break down?
Victims of human trafficking can be young children, teenagers, men and women. They can be U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) or foreign nationals, and they can be found in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
Organ theft is the forcible removal of a person's organs to be used as transplants and sold on the black market. While some cases of organ theft are urban legends, others have been found to be true.
According to the widely used, although somewhat hard-to-find-credit-for figures, a heart is worth around $1 million in the US. Livers come in second, worth about $557,000 and kidneys cost about $262,000 each. Not to speak about human skin ($10/inch), stomach ($500), and eyeballs ($1,500 each).
The liver is the only visceral organ to possess remarkable regenerative potential. In other words, the liver grows back. This regenerative potential is the reason why partial liver transplants are feasible.
Although some patients who have a diseased portion of their liver removed are unable to regrow the tissue and end up needing a transplant. Researchers from Michigan State University believe blood clotting factor fibrinogen may be responsible.
Organs are usually transplanted because the recipient's original organs are damaged and cannot function. The brain is the only organ in the human body that cannot be transplanted.
The liver has a unique capacity among organs to regenerate itself after damage. A liver can regrow to a normal size even after up to 90% of it has been removed. But the liver isn't invincible. Many diseases and exposures can harm it beyond the point of repair.
A person cannot become an organ donor if they have or are suspected of having: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Ebola virus disease. Active cancer.
To date, most donor organs have come from deceased donors, but the percentage of living donors has climbed each year since 1988. Kidney transplants are the most common type of transplant surgery; the least common single-organ transplants are the intestines.
Anyone over age 18 may choose to donate their brain after death. A legal guardian must provide consent for those younger than 18. This includes people who have a brain disorder and those with healthy brains. In fact, both are needed for this important research.
Organ donation is only possible when the donor has died in a hospital. Organs need a supply of oxygen-rich blood to remain suitable for transplantation. Donors are put on artificial respiration to keep their heart beating, so that oxygen-rich blood continues to circulate through their body.
The brain is certainly the least understood organ in the human body.