Episode 4: Defence Not Wanted - Transplants and Autoimmune Illnesses
Timecode list

Timecode 00:25 - 05:28

Dialysis patient

Organ donations to save lives

For many patients, an organ transplant is the only chance to survive or lead a half-way normal life. But not all of the sick can be helped, because there are not enough organ donations available.

Timecode 05:29 - 10:16

Production of t-cells

The rejection of foreign organs

The immune system is programmed to eliminate everything which appears foreign to it. This defensive attitude, which is aimed at pathogens, is not a desirable reaction in the case of organ transplants.

Start animated film
(Length: 4:07 min)

Timecode 10:17 - 17:13

Profile of properties

The selection of suitable donors

To keep the defence reaction as low as possible, donor organs are selected so that the tissue features of the recipient and the donor correspond to each other as much as possible. The defence mechanism can be repressed by the use of medications.

Start animated film
(Length: 1:45 min)

Timecode 17:14 - 19:12

Diagnosis: brain death

Organ donations and brain death

The majority of organ donations come from brain-dead patients. The Transplantation Act regulates how brain death is to be determined beyond a doubt.

Timecode 19:13 - 22:20

Brain damage through multiple sclerosis

Autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis

In cases of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, immune system's defences act against the body's own tissue.

Start animated film
(Length: 0:57 min)

Timecode 22:21 - 27:13

Rheumatism therapy

Autoimmune disease rheumatism

Inflammatory rheumatism is another type of disease in which the immune system destroys the body's own tissue. The movement structures are affected most severely.

 

Content

The programme explores two examples of diseases in which the immune system's defences turn against the body it is supposed to protect.

1. Transplant

    Many patients who have suffered severe damage to an organ can be helped only by the transplant of an organ from a donor. The film shows a patient who can lead virtually a normal life thanks to a donated kidney. However, he must take medicines for the rest of his life which keep the immune system in check, as it would otherwise destroy the foreign organ.

    An animated film sequence shows how the immune system is programmed to recognize and attack tissue which is foreign to the body.

    Undesirable defence reactions can be avoided to a certain degree by careful selection of a matching donated organ. When choosing donor and recipient, care is taken that the tissue properties of the two people deviate as little as possible from one another.

    But the immune system must be restrained even when there is a good tissue match. Another animated film shows why.

    The removal of donor organs is strictly regulated. The brain death of the donor must be established beyond a doubt. Nevertheless, it is often difficult for the family members to give their permission. It is simpler when the donor ordered while still alive that his organs could be removed and used for transplants after his death.

2. Autoimmune diseases

    Multiple sclerosis and inflammatory rheumatism are two examples of autoimmune diseases. The name comes from the fact that the immune system attacks the body's own tissue.

    In the case of multiple sclerosis, nerve pathways in the brain are attacked. Inflammatory rheumatism leads to destruction of the bone tissue.

    A cure has not been found for either of these diseases; physicians are able only to relieve the symptoms.