Feature Channels: Transplantation

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One year ago, then 65-year-old Miriam Clark developed a fever, lost her appetite and had no energy. She and her daughter, Tye Clark, the administrative services manager of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Division of Hospital Medicine, never could have imagined what they would end up going through before Miriam was diagnosed with COVID-19. Looking back on the year, the mother and daughter duo are thankful and now even have reason to celebrate.

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‘Tissue-resident memory T cells’, whose main function is to provide local protection against re-infection, contribute to chronic transplant rejection.

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New York City's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) announces the following awards and appointments for March 2021.

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An RNA molecule, cataloged in scientific databases simply as Linc00402, helps activate immune defenders known as T cells in response to the presence of foreign human cells. Findings suggests inhibiting the RNA therapeutically might improve outcomes for transplant recipients.

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• Patients with kidney failure associated with sickle cell disease benefit from kidney transplants, but they’re less likely than other patients to receive them.

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Researchers have discovered a blood biomarker that predicts kidney transplant rejection with a lead time of about eight months, which could give doctors an opportunity to intervene and prevent permanent damage, potentially using an existing medication.

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• Racial disparities in access to kidney transplantation persist in the United States. New research indicates that registering Black patients on the kidney transplant waitlist at a slightly higher level of kidney function compared with white patients might lessen racial inequality in patients’ wait time prior to kidney failure onset, and ultimately improve racial equity in access to kidney transplantation.

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Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center became the second hospital in the nation to implant a newly-designed mechanical pump in a patient with severe heart failure.

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Around 80% of the UK population is currently infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and in developing countries this can be as high as 95%.

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• Veterans who receive all of their post–kidney transplant care within the Veterans Health Administration (VA) have a lower risk of death than those who receive care outside the VA through Medicare coverage, according to a recent study.

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Two January 2021 reports show that survival rates for heart transplant and LVAD implant surgeries at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center rank among the nation’s best.

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• Despite wide recognition, policy reforms, and extensive research to address barriers in patients’ access to kidney transplantation, investigators found no improvement in rates of wait list placement and transplantation over 2 decades. • Moreover, rates among vulnerable populations are especially low.

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In the age of COVID-19, decisions that affect our day-to-day lives are influenced by analyzing numbers and data. For example, the COVID-19 positivity rate (the percentage of people who test positive for the virus out of the total number tested) influence whether or not businesses may open to the public, or, if schools should offer virtual, hybrid or in-class learning. Data are critical for strategizing, planning and implementing the policies and procedures needed to respond to the crisis and keep people safe.

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— The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) re- affirms its support for the Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) Conditions for Coverage final rule issued on November 20, 2020. The society calls for the Biden-Harris administration to implement this final policy as expediently as possible. By bringing objective and verifiable standards to assess the performance of OPOs, this final rule will increase the number of organs available for transplant and reduce racial inequity in the U.S. transplant system.

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• Race and social determinants of health were associated with the likelihood of undergoing kidney transplantation among US adults with kidney failure. • Interventions that target social determinants of health may improve access to kidney transplantation.

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The Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC) established a new record in 2020 for total solid organ transplants, performing 611 life-saving procedures among its adult and pediatric organ transplant programs.

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Luis A. Fernandez, MD, FACS, is the new division chief, intra-abdominal transplantation at Loyola Medicine. Dr. Fernandez is a world-renowned transplant surgeon specializing in pancreas, liver, islet cell and renal transplantation.

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When Shari Baugh, 61, woke up on her birthday last October, she had two new reasons to be grateful for another trip around the sun: the healthy heart and kidney she had just received from Cedars-Sinai transplant surgeons.

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A new study shows that intense immunosuppression followed by a hematopoietic stem cell transplant may prevent disability associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) from getting worse in 71% of people with relapsing-remitting MS for up to 10 years after the treatment. The research is published in the January 20, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found that in some people their disability improved over 10 years after treatment. Additionally, more than half of the people with the secondary progressive form of MS experienced no worsening of their symptoms 10 years after a transplant.

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On December 9, 2020, Gianna Graw saved four lives and became the first patient to make a “good samaritan” kidney donation through Hackensack University Medical Center’s partnership with National Kidney Registry (NKR), an organization that facilitates living donor kidney transplants.

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Researchers with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are collaborating with faculty at the University of Pennsylvania to develop a risk score that more comprehensively prioritizes liver cancer patients for transplantation.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center performed more heart transplants in 2020 than any other center in the world — 124 adult hearts, 23 pediatric hearts and VUMC’s first heart-lung transplant since 2006.

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Program’s 100th Lung Transplant Is Its First for a Patient with Lungs Damaged by COVID-19

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UC San Diego Health’s lung, heart, kidney and liver transplant programs rank at the top nationally in the latest biannual Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) report. Innovative treatment and multi-disciplinary care contribute to the high rankings for one-year survival outcomes.

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A research study at the University of Chicago has found that in pregnancy, while the T cell response to a fetus becomes tolerant to allow for successful pregnancy, the part of the immune system that produces antibodies (known as the humoral response) becomes sensitized, creating memory B cells that can later contribute to the rejection of a transplanted organ.

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Women awaiting liver transplants in the United States are known to be about one-third more likely than men to become too ill to undergo surgery or die before receiving a liver.

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The Liver and Intestinal Transplant Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles began in 1998 and now performs 25 to 30 liver transplants each year—the most in Southern California—with survival rates exceeding national averages. The hospital recently performed its 400th transplant.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johns Hopkins Medicine Media Relations is focused on disseminating current, accurate and useful information to the public via the media. As part of that effort, we are distributing our “COVID-19 Tip Sheet: Story Ideas from Johns Hopkins” every other Tuesday.

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A virtual telehealth platform is allowing a surgery program to evaluate and wait-list patients for kidney transplantation.

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In a year rocked by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center is on track to match or break records.

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By studying the roles of an inflammatory protein and antibodies in chronic rejection after lung transplantation, researchers discover possibilities for new treatments.

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• When determining whether kidneys are suitable for transplantation in the United States, biopsy analyses don’t provide useful information beyond standard donor and recipient characteristics. • Many kidneys discarded based on biopsy findings would likely benefit U.S. patients who are waiting for a transplant.

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A multi-institutional study finds that COVID-19 can be found in post-mortem corneal tissue, highlighting the importance of the donor screening process.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johns Hopkins Medicine Media Relations is focused on disseminating current, accurate and useful information to the public via the media. As part of that effort, we are distributing our “COVID-19 Tip Sheet: Story Ideas from Johns Hopkins” every other Tuesday.

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Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have combined synthetic biology with a machine learning algorithm to create human liver organoids with blood and bile handling systems. When implanted into mice with failing livers, the lab-grown replacement livers extended life.

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Many patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) can be cured by a transplant using their own blood-forming stem cells, but as many as half eventually relapse. New research led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists suggests that patients whose blood or stem cell samples harbor tumor DNA are likely to relapse.

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Clonal hematopoiesis (CH) is a recently identified condition in which mutations associated with blood cancers are detected in the blood of some healthy, usually older, individuals who don’t have cancer. People with CH, while asymptomatic, have an elevated risk of developing blood cancers and other negative health outcomes, including heart attacks and strokes.

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A new clinical trial offers the most compelling evidence to date that a donor stem cell transplant can improve survival rates for older patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators report at the virtual 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.

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In a new paper, published in JAMA Surgery, researchers found the metrics used to rank organ procurement organizations don’t create an even playing field for organizations, and lead to inaccuracies.

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A new national policy was created to make determining who receives a heart transplant more fair. But new data shows it changed some practice patterns, too.

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Data from a new study presented this week at The Liver Meeting Digital Experience® – held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases – found that U.S. states that took part in the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which extended health care coverage to more low-income citizens, improved liver transplant waitlist placement, especially for certain racial groups.

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Data from a new study presented this week at The Liver Meeting Digital Experience® – held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases – found that using neural networks, a type of machine learning algorithm, is a more accurate model for predicting waitlist mortality in liver transplantation, outperforming the older model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) scoring. This advancement could lead to the development of more equitable organ allocation systems and even reduce liver transplant waitlist death rates for patients.

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Los pacientes que tienen riñones poliquísticos grandes y necesitan un trasplante de riñón pueden someterse simultáneamente y de forma segura a la extirpación laparoscópica de los riñones enfermos y al trasplante.

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About 1 in 5 patients who are on the national waiting list for a liver transplant die or become too sick before an organ becomes available. With an ever-growing need for organs, Mayo Clinic is working to increase awareness about living liver donation for transplantation.

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A new study shows that robotic-assisted kidney transplant and weight loss surgery can be performed safely.

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Just days after receiving a new heart, Moore was excited to find out he won't miss the opportunity to vote because he can cast his ballot from his hospital bed.

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A husband and wife, a mother and son, two cousins, two sisters, and a boss and her direct report were strangers from different cities and diverse backgrounds. Now, after a successful, and rare, 5-way kidney swap at Houston Methodist, they are instant family.

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• In an analysis of information on patients with kidney failure, Black patients are less likely than white patients to be placed on transplant waiting lists. • For patients on such lists, Blacks are less likely to receive transplants than whites. • Results from the study will be presented online during ASN Kidney Week 2020 Reimagined October 19–October 25.