The United States Senate unanimously passed the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement Transplantation Network (OPTN) Act (S. 1668), following House passage earlier this week, marking a new era for the United States transplant system.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, more than 100,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant, and the demand for donated kidneys far exceeds the supply. In fact, only 25,498 kidney transplants were performed in 2022, and kidney disease impacts 37 million people in the U.S. But a new preclinical study, led by scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, shows that a new technology called mitochondrial transplantation holds promise as a potential therapy that could change the kidney transplant landscape.
The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) celebrates the unanimous passage of the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement Transplantation Network (OPTN) Act (H.R. 2544) by the United States House of Representatives. This bipartisan legislation will increase transparency, accountability, and competition in the U.S. transplant system.
Valance Sams Sr.’s world was turned upside down 10 years ago when he was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a rare inflammatory disease that caused a buildup of scar tissue on his heart and left him unable to work, exercise or even walk.
Based on findings from a study published today in the journal, The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and three collaborating medical institutions suggest that people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who donate a kidney to other people living with HIV (PLWH) have a low risk of developing end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) or other kidney problems in the years following the donation.
A new study, which involved experiments on mice and human patients, uncovered an important communication pathway between two molecules called CEACAM1 (CC1) and TIM-3, finding that the pathway plays a crucial role in controlling the body's immune response during liver transplantation.
In the next step toward producing the answer to kidney transplantation shortages, Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), and the kidney research team, have been awarded the prestigious KidneyX Track 2 $1 Million Prize for work based on a 3D kidney construct platform.
Approximately 90,000 Americans, including 1,100 children are currently waiting for a kidney transplant. Tragically, 12 Americans will die today waiting for a kidney. Advocates from the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) are on Capitol Hill today urging Congress to implement reforms that will help maximize access to transplant care for the 37 million Americans living with kidney diseases; the 8th leading cause of death in the United States.
An initiative at Northeast Georgia Medical Center’s hospital campus in Gainesville created a hospital culture that values organ donation as a standard of care for patients and families, leading to a sustained increase in referrals, donors and transplanted organs.
A surgical team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis recently performed the first robotic liver transplant in the U.S. in May at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
The randomized controlled study was conducted by 15 liver transplant centers in the United States, including Ochsner Health Liver Transplant Institute, and compared the use of normothermic machine preservation (NMP)—which maintains the organ at normal body temperature-- with static cold storage (SCS) in 383 donor organs.
Fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30, proved to be the busiest year yet for Cedars-Sinai’s Comprehensive Transplant Center and Smidt Heart Institute, with more than 600 organs transplanted.
Doctors in Seattle are reporting a history-making case in which a patient received two donor organs, a liver and a heart, to prevent the extreme likelihood that her body would reject a donor heart transplanted alone. In this innovative case, the organ recipient’s own healthy liver was transplanted, domino-like, into a second patient who had advanced liver disease.
A new study published today in The Lancet has revealed the most extensive analysis to date on what led to the eventual heart failure in the world's first successful transplant of a genetically-modified pig heart into a human patient.
Striving to improve organ transplant survival rates, internationally renowned researchers in immunology and bioengineering at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have received $15.1 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to lead a novel, five-year multi-center research program that will explore trained immunity—the innate immune system’s ability to remember infections and other insults—as a target for preventing organ transplant rejection.
An experimental antibody treatment largely prevented a bone marrow transplant complication called graft versus host disease (GVHD) in the intestines, without causing broad immune suppression, in a preclinical study led by researchers from Penn Medicine and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and published today in Science Translational Medicine.
Race-neutral lung function interpretation could increase access to lung transplants for Black patients with respiratory disease, according to new research published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society online ahead of print.
Clinicians have a new standard for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prevention after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, according to results from a phase III study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The new standard is more effective at preventing GVHD and came with less side effects, compared with the current gold standard.
Survival rates of babies after bone-marrow transplants jumped significantly after screening for SCID – severe combined immunodeficiency disease – started in North America in 2008, a major study finds.
Loyola Medicine's advanced robotic surgery program makes it one of the few hospitals in the country to offer kidney transplantation to patients with obesity.
Dozens of children die each year in the U.S. while waiting for a new liver. A new analysis suggests that greater use of partial liver transplants — either from a living donor or by splitting a deceased donor’s liver for two recipients — could save many of these young lives.
Rohit Loomba, MD, has been named chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at University of California San Diego School of Medicine. His new role is effective June 1, 2023.
As more families consider bariatric surgery a viable option to treat their child’s obesity, it is important to stay up-to-date on the latest research on weight loss. You can find the latest research on bariatric surgery and other weight loss options in the Weight Loss channel on Newswise, where journalists can find story ideas on this trending topic.
Some centers routinely skip the top kidney transplant candidates on the wait list and give the kidney to lower-ranked patients, finds a new study at Columbia University.
A study published in New England Journal of Medicine confirms that circulatory death donor hearts that are reanimated and perfused with blood outside of the body are as safe and effective to transplant as brain death donor hearts preserved using traditional cold storage. These findings suggest that using hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) may have the potential to widen the donor pool helping more patients in need of life-saving heart transplants.
A study led by Duke Health physicians, appearing online June 8 in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that DCD hearts were equivalent to hearts procured through the current standard of care.
Cedars-Sinai clinicians and scientists, including Medawar Prize winner Stanley Jordan, MD, and prominent nephrology and immunology investigator Peter Heeger, MD, will share their latest advances in research at the American Transplant Congress (ATC), June 3-7, 2023, in San Diego.
A tiny population of T-cells could serve as a much-needed biomarker—and a potential therapeutic target—for pediatric acute liver failure, according to new research from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Below are summaries of recent Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center research findings and other news. If you’re covering the American Society for Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting, June 2-6 in Chicago, Illinois, see our list of Fred Hutch research highlights at ASCO and contact [email protected] to set up interviews with experts.
Transplant surgeons at the University of Michigan Health completed the health system’s first heart transplant using a donation after circulatory death, or DCD, heart. DCD transplants increased 68% in 2022.
Announcement of Zoe Stewart Lewis, MD, PhD, MPH, as the new Director of Cleveland's University Hospitals Transplant Institute and Chief of the Division of Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgery in the Department of Surgery.
The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) applauds the introduction of the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act (S. 1668), bipartisan legislation to ensure accountability and transparency in the U.S. transplant system by modernizing its underlying technology and policy infrastructure.
Com muita frequência, as pessoas que estão esperando por transplantes de órgãos que salvam vidas não conseguem realizar o procedimento. Um dos maiores desafios é a falta de órgãos doados em condições viáveis.
Es demasiado frecuente que las personas que esperan un trasplante de órganos para salvar sus vidas no puedan conseguirlo. Una de las mayores dificultades es la falta de órganos donados viables.
في كثير من الأحيان، لا يمكن لمن ينتظرون عمليات زراعة الأعضاء المنقذة للحياة الحصول عليها. من أكبر التحديات التي تواجههم: الافتقار إلى الأعضاء الصالحة المُتبرع بها.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) will make history this month when the first bioprinted solid tissue constructs soar to the International Space Station (ISS) on board the next all private astronaut mission by commercial space leader Axiom Space.
Title 42, the United States pandemic rule that had been used to immediately deport hundreds of thousands of migrants who crossed the border illegally over the last three years, has expired. Those migrants will have the opportunity to apply for asylum. President Biden's new rules to replace Title 42 are facing legal challenges. Border crossings have already risen sharply, as many migrants attempt to cross before the measure expires on Thursday night. Some have said they worry about tighter controls and uncertainty ahead. Immigration is once again a major focus of the media as we examine the humanitarian, political, and public health issues migrants must go through.
Eric Bredahl, PhD, and his team of undergraduate research assistants are trusting that Nature, if asked nicely, or at least insistently, will yield another of her secrets.
It's one thing to buy your mother flowers or a gift certificate to the spa for Mother’s Day - but it’s a whole other thing to give her the gift of life. In a reversal of roles, thanks to the miracle of kidney donation, a New Jersey daughter was able to give her own mother the gift of life, 37 years after her mom gave her life.
The Kathryn F. Kirk Center for Comprehensive Cancer Care and Women’s Cancers is a major expansion of Huntsman Cancer Institute, designed with the most advanced cancer care expertise and technology.
To compare the outcomes of patients receiving lungs transplanted after undergoing ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) versus those transplanted conventionally at the Toronto General Hospital, Aadil Ali, PhD, and coauthors looked at 14 years of data from the Toronto Lung Transplant Database.
Lung transplantation is routinely performed at night because of the unpredictability of donor organ procurement. Late start-times for complex operations such as lung transplantation have been associated with adverse outcomes.
In the United States, an average of three people die every day waiting for a liver transplant, which resulted in nearly 1,200 lives lost in 2021. Liver allocation policy has undergone major modifications in the last 10 years.
• The Living Donor Protection Act (LDPA) will remove barriers facing living donors.
• Approximately 90,000 adults and 1,100 children are on the kidney transplant waitlist.
• 12 American die every day while waiting for a kidney transplant.
• More than 37 million Americans are living with kidney diseases, including more than 800,000 with kidney failure.
Experts from the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center and Smidt Heart Institute are available for interviews about transplantation, immunology and organ donation in April, Donate Life Month, and throughout the year.
The resilience and coping abilities of patients who’ve had liver transplants vary and change over time and are often linked to sociodemographic factors including income, race, and education, a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers shows. The findings could lead to tailored interventions to optimize clinical and patient-centered outcomes among liver transplant recipients.