What’s
your kidney worth?
Thinking about all the things our
bodies are capable of it is hard to put a price tag onto the form and function
of the parts that make up our bodies.
Some of the most visible body parts such as an arm or a leg enable us to
function as evolution intended, however losing one of these extremities will
not directly threaten our ability to sustain life. That being said, the Federal Employee
Compensation Act, FECA, values the arm 8% above the leg, where the complete
loss of function or amputation of the arm will land an individual 312 weeks of
compensation (lawers.com). That means
that if you were making $44,322, the average wage index for 2012 (Official Social
Security website), you would be entitled to $265,932. That is assuming that some kind of negligence
could not be proven which could quickly add large settlement payouts for the
injury. When it comes to internal
organs, such as calculating the cost of a kidney, it might get a little
trickier.
Most people are born with two
functioning kidneys that perform a wide range of functions within the renal system,
which also includes the ureters that connect the kidney to the bladder and the
urethra that drains the bladder to the external environment. The main function of the kidney is filtration
of body fluids, maintaining the composition, pH, osmotic pressure, and amount
of the fluids within our body. The
kidney also shares responsibility in regulating blood pressure, the production
of red blood cells, producing some of the glucose found in our bodies, and
activating Vitamin D. The kidney may be
the most efficient organ within our body; the functioning of one kidney at 75%
of its normal functioning is enough to properly filter the body’s fluids for
many decades (Andrews 2002).
The kidney receives about 20% of
the blood flow coming from the heart and nearly 120 liters of blood are
filtered every day through the 1.2 million functioning nephrons. Each nephron is made up of a Bowman’s capsule
that encloses a glomerulus made up of a tuft of capillaries, a proximal
convoluted tubule, the loop of Henle, a distal convoluted tubule and a
collecting duct that drains about eight nephrons. Filtration occurs nondiscriminately followed
by selective tubular reabsorption and secretion. Kidney functioning is
typically measured through glomerular filtration rate, GFR, with a normal rate
of 100 mL per minute. Chronic kidney
disease is considered to be present when the GFR falls below 90 mL per minute
along with proteinuria or hematuria, a genetic diagnosis of kidney disease, or
structural abnormalities (The Renal Association).
When the kidney fails to properly
function only a few options for treatment exist. Extremely minute kidney failure may be
treated with a strictly prescribed diet limited in proteins, but most cases of
kidney failure are treated through dialysis, a kidney transplant, or both. Dialysis is available in two different forms,
both of which require a minor surgery to gain access into the body. Hemodialysis is performed through the use of
a machine that filters your blood pumped through a dialyzer outside of your
body. Peritoneal dialysis utilizes a
catheter placed inside of the peritoneal cavity of the abdomen and a dialysate
is pumped into the abdomen and replaced several times a day removing extra
solutes each time it is emptied. Kidney
transplants require a donor kidney that replaces the damaged kidney of the
effected individual in a major organ transplant surgery.
It is when things go wrong that allows a price tag to be put on the
kidney through the costs of dialysis or a kidney transplant. When the kidney is not filtering the body’s
fluids properly and dialysis is required a single emergency room visit for
dialysis could run $9,900 for a single treatment, but outside of emergency room
visits a typical peritoneal dialysis treatment will cost roughly $53,000
annually and hemodialysis will cost about $72,000 annually (How much does
dialysis cost). Americans have an
average life span of 78.7 years (Hoyert D and Xu D 2011) and figuring an annual
cost of dialysis at $72,000 means that throughout a person’s lifetime their
kidneys will perform $5,666,400 worth of filtering the body’s fluids, but
because this functioning could be performed by one kidney that cost could be
split in half to a value of $2,833,200 per kidney. A kidney transplant will cost the recipient
of the kidney about $262,900 which covers treatment and medications before and
after the surgery, the hospital transplant admission, the price of the surgeon,
immunosuppressants, and the procurement of a kidney valued at $67,200
(transplantliving.org). One final price
for the kidney to be considered is the black-market, where in the United States
a kidney could land a donor $25,000 and the person buying the donated kidney
might be able to resell it for $150,000 if an illegitimate buyer and doctor can
be found (Postrel 2012).
In summary a few different prices are found to exist for the kidney. A lifetime of dialysis in lieu of at least one
functioning kidney will cost more than $5.5 million in a lifetime. Buying a legitimate kidney through an organ
transplant bank will run $67,000 plus roughly another $200,00 for the
surgery. The black market could produce
a value of $150,000 for a sold kidney where the donor may see $25,000 of that
amount. Averaging all these numbers,
the price of a kidney transplant, the price a donor would receive on the
black-market, the price a seller on the black-market would get, and splitting
the cost of a lifetime of dialysis in half to determine a per kidney cost produces
a mean value of $818,800. Despite a large potential for profit I would
not recommend the black market route.
However if a close friend or family member is in need of a new kidney
and you are determined to be a match I would recommend considering donating
your kidney to them since we really only need one to survive, but if that
situation arises talk to the professionals to ensure that you are aware of all
the risks and benefits.
Works
Cited
Andrews M.A. 2002 Apr.
How can you live without one of your kidneys. Scientific American. [Internet].
[cited 2013 Dec 1]. Available
from: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-can-you-live-without
Life expectancy [Internet]. c2013. Atlanta: Center for Disease Control; [updated
2013 May 30, cited 2013 Dec 2].
Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm
Lost limb award schedules
[Internet]. c2013. Lawyers.com.
Miamisburg (OH): Lexis Nexus. [cited 2013 Dec 2]. Available from: http://workers-compensation.lawyers.com/Lost-Limb-Award-Schedules.html
Postrel V: How much is your kidney
worth? [Internet]. c2013. New York City: Bloomberg. [cited 2013 Dec
2]. Available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-16/how-much-is-your-kidney-worth-.html
Transplant living: your
prescription for transplant living [Internet].
c2013. Richmond (VA): UNOS. [cited 2013 Dec 1]. Available from:
