A unified bone bank was established by 11 Department of Health-affiliated hospitals yesterday, which health officials said will help improve the allocation and availability of human bone tissue for use in surgery.
Chen Hsing-yuan (陳興源), an orthopedic surgeon at the Taipei Hospital, said the supply of bone was limited due to traditional beliefs that maintain the importance of leaving corpses whole.
"Even those who are willing to donate their major organs are sometimes unwilling to donate their bones," he told the news conference yesterday.
Estimates reveal that only around 17 percent of organ donors opt to donate their bones.
"We are trying to educate people about how much donated bone can help others," Chen said.
Bone tissue from just one donor can help dozens of patients including those who need bone reconstruction after serious injury, spinal fusion surgery and artificial joint replacements, he said. There is no perfect substitute for human bone for some surgical procedures, he said
Chen used the example of Ms. Hsu (
"If we had put in an artificial joint, she would likely have to deal with the repeated failure of the joint during the course of her life," Chen said. "However, since we used human bone tissue, the repairs were able to knit perfectly with her existing bone and her joint is perfectly sound."
There are artificial joints made out of titanium, he said, but they are very expensive and inferior to human bone tissue.
Family members need not be afraid that the removal of bone will impact the appearance of the body.
"Of course we ensure that the bones are replaced with supporting materials so that the body will appear the same," he said.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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