• Question: if one organ fails, will any other organs fail as a result, or will the rest still be active?

    Asked by jmrulz to Del, Catherine on 7 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by annawatsonx.
    • Photo: Catherine Mansfield

      Catherine Mansfield answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      Hi. Thanks for your question.
      This will depend on which organ is failing and how much function it has lost. Some organs are very dependent on each other, for example, the heart and kidneys are very closely linked and so patients with heart failure often also suffer from kidney problems and people with kidney failure have associated heart problems. Some other organs however are fairly independent and their failure will cause you some health problems but will probably not affect the function of the other organs.

    • Photo: Adelle Thrower

      Adelle Thrower answered on 8 Mar 2014:

      Hi there!
      As mentioned it would depend on the organ, and the disease. The brain and heart are pretty important so if they start to fail then that could affect other organs. Some diseases will have a dramatic affect on other organs – if cancer has spread to more than one the it can affect others. However, the body is pretty nifty on keeping itself ok if one organ fails- for example, often we have two organs like kidney or lung so we kind of have a “spare”. The body can function quite normally on only one kidney working at only 30%!! Also our bodies can live WITHOUT lots of organs (with the help of medicine) such as tonsils and appendix- but also bigger organs like the gallbladder, pancreas, thyroid and spleen (a ye oldie doctor once took out his own spaniels spleen to prove to the people that you could!!) .

Comments

  • Photo: Krishna

    Krishna commented on :

    As Cath said, it depends on which organ is failing, since some organs are dependent and where as other organs independent. For example: Liver failure (the largest organ in the body) leads to failure of the multiple organs in the body; for example: failure of liver also leads to kidney failure, failure of heart and also it drastically effects brain too. But, liver has a wonderful capacity to “regenerate” the damage to a greater extent, and is the only organ with this unique feature.