What are the advantages and disadvantages of posters?

Advantages/Disadvantages of Dialysis/Kidney Transplants?

• I am revising for a Biology Mock, and I'm a bit stuck...? So yeah, I would love some ideas of advantages and disadvantages of dialysis, and advantages and disadvantages of kidney transplants. Thanks

• Answer:

  Dialysis. Advantages: It keeps you alive. It doesn't cost a lot, in the scheme of things. People can be given a machine and trained to do it at home. Disadvantages: The kidneys have something like 40 functions and dialysis only covers 2 or 3 of these. So dialysis patients are never really healthy. For instance, the kidneys are where the body stores iron, so dialysis patients are always anemic. They are often 'confused', and have many other problems. In other words, it keeps you alive, if you call that 'living'. 8^< Transplant. Advantages: A transplant patient is generally much healthier than a dialysis patient. Immunosuppression drugs (anti-rejection drugs) have improved incredibly in the last few years, so transplants last a lot longer. Dialysis patients are usually not able to work but a transplant patient can usually function normally. A transplant patient doesn't have to sit in a chair for 3 hrs at a time, 3 times a week. Disadvantages: Organs for transplant are in short supply, so you might have to wait 3 or 4 years before one becomes available, or find someone to donate one. (And the operation to remove a kidney is much mor serious and invasive than the operation to transplant one!) Immunosuppression drugs have bizarre side effects, like weight gain, high blood pressure, etc. The drugs make you susceptible to every germ and virus in the air--the whole idea is to destroy your body's defenses. The patient has to take on some considerable responsibility--keep up with their drugs, get regular follow-ups and blood tests, etc., and apparently this is a problem with some patients. And if the original kidneys were destroyed by diabetes, the new kidney may be also.