Feature Channels: Transplantation

• share
• favorite_border

click to see today's top stories

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have used a completely new preclinical technique and analysis of tissue from patients to show exactly what happens when certain patients with Parkinson's disease are restored as a result of nerve cell transplants. They have also identified what makes many of the transplant patients develop serious side effects in the form of involuntary movements.

• share
• favorite_border

In the late 1980s and over the 1990s, researchers at Lund University in Sweden pioneered the transplantation of new nerve cells into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease. The outcomes proved for the first time that transplanted nerve cells can survive and function in the diseased human brain. Some patients showed marked improvement after the transplantation while others showed moderate or no relief of symptoms. A small number of patients suffered unwanted side-effects in the form of involuntary movements.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have safely transplanted stem cells derived from a patient’s skin to the back of the eye in an effort to restore vision. The research is being presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Seattle, Wash.

• share
• favorite_border

A Loyola University Medical Center patient underwent a successful liver/kidney transplant to treat nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (fatty liver disease).

• share
• favorite_border

This ARVO Meeting showcases cutting-edge eye and vision science and an early glimpse into the latest advances in potential treatments for eye disease and blindness — often years ahead of their introduction to the clinic.

• share
• favorite_border

People who had cancer before receiving an organ transplant were more likely to die of any cause, die of cancer or develop a new cancer than organ recipients who did not previously have cancer, a new paper has found. However, the increased risk is less than that reported in some previous studies.

• share
• favorite_border

The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) is one of two leading kidney health organizations participating in Kidney Health Advocacy Day 2016 in Washington, DC. Advocates from ASN and the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) will meet with Congressional offices to call for lawmakers’ support of the Living Donor Protection Act of 2016. Kidney health providers and patients will urge passage of the legislation that would eliminate barriers to living donation and help increase access to lifesaving transplants.

• share
• favorite_border

Susan Hou, MD, who altruistically donated a kidney to one of her patients and later became a recipient of a lung transplant, is among the transplant patients who will be honored April 21 during Loyola University Medical Center’s 25th annual Candle-lighting Ceremony.

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital successfully completed the first combined lung and liver transplant in North Texas on a 25-year-old Gainesville man – the 75th patient nationwide to receive the rare double-organ transplant. Josiah Ferrell of Gainesville is now able to walk outside without the oxygen tank he has carried around 24 hours a day and breathe in the fresh air of the outdoors for the first time in about two years.

• share
• favorite_border

After a kidney transplant, women may experience decreased kidney damage from ischemia reperfusion injury compared to men due to the impact of gender-specific hormones, suggests a new preclinical study and an analysis of patient data published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from physicians at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, found there may be long-term benefits to simultaneous liver-kidney transplantation versus kidney transplantation alone.

• share
• favorite_border

High-volume lung transplant centers have lower transplantation costs and their patients are less likely to be readmitted within 30 days of leaving the hospital following surgery, according to a new study of more than 3,000 Medicare patients who received lung transplants.

• share
• favorite_border

A complication associated with bone marrow transplantation, graft-versus-host-disease occurs when a transplanted immune system attacks certain parts of a host’s body, and may cause severe dry eye and damage to the cornea. A clinical trial at Massachusetts Eye and Ear showed that topical doses of ultra low-dose tacrolimus, an immunosuppressive medication, is equally effective and showed fewer hypertensive side effects in treating ocular symptoms associated with graft-versus-host-disease than methylprednisolone, a steroid medication that may cause a rise in eye pressure and other ocular complications.

• share
• favorite_border

Bill Spence feels so good since receiving a heart transplant at Loyola University Medical Center that he’s planning to hike the Appalachian Trail to raise awareness for organ donation. Mr. Spence hopes to sign up 2,190 donors – one for each mile of the trail

• share
• favorite_border

Gift from United Therapeutics will establish UAB Xenotransplantation Program and bring additional resources to support the endeavor with a goal of genetically modified kidney transplants taking place by 2021.

• share
• favorite_border

Tector’s arrival will bring the addition of a multivisceral and small bowel transplant program to UAB’s Division of Transplantation.

• share
• favorite_border

Experts from Johns Hopkins, less than a week after announcing the world’s first HIV+ to HIV+ liver transplant, outline the special ethical concerns of such transplants in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

New research suggests pretreating cells with a peptide hormone may improve the success rate of pancreatic islet cell transplants, a procedure that holds great promise for curing Type 1 diabetes. The results will be presented Saturday, April 2, at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, ENDO 2016, in Boston.

• share
• favorite_border

At age 74, Loyola University Medical Center patient Brian Andersen recently became what is believed to be the oldest patient in Illinois to receive a lung transplant. And he feels terrific.As Mr. Andersen’s case illustrates, the upper age limit for lung transplantation has been increasing steadily.

• share
• favorite_border

Loyola University Medical Center thoracic surgeon Wickii Vigneswaran, MD, is chief editor of the definitive new textbook, “Lung Transplantation: Principles and Practice.”

• share
• favorite_border

• Among 10,533 kidney transplant recipients, 57% visited an emergency department within 2 years after transplantation. • Risk factors for emergency department visits included younger age, females, black and Hispanic race/ethnicity, public insurance, depression, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, and use of emergency departments prior to transplantation.

• share
• favorite_border

In what is certain to be an emotional church service, prominent Chicago minister Rev. Joseph Kyles will return to his pulpit Easter Sunday for the first time since undergoing a life-saving double-lung transplant.

• share
• favorite_border

Recently discovered biomarkers may provide valuable new approaches to monitoring immunosuppressive drug therapy in organ transplant recipients—with the potential for individualized therapy to reduce organ rejection and minimize side effects, according to a special article in the April issue of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, official journal of the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

• share
• favorite_border

A surgical team at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas successfully performed a heart transplant on a patient living with a total artificial heart (TAH), a first time event in North Texas. The lifesaving TAH technology, a portable device that pumps blood throughout the body, is used as a "bridge" until a donor heart becomes available.

• share
• favorite_border

Following kidney transplant, patients are routinely placed on a regimen of immunosuppressant medications to prevent organ rejection, which often includes calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) as the backbone medication of this regimen. However, questions remain about the best use of these drugs to strike the balance between preventing rejection and avoiding drug-related complications.

• share
• favorite_border

Yolanda T. Becker, MD, professor of surgery and director of the kidney and pancreas transplantation program at the University of Chicago Medicine, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/United Network for Organ Sharing (OPTN/UNOS) board of directors.

• share
• favorite_border

Transplantation of the periorbital tissues—the area surrounding the eyes—is a "technically feasible" alternative to protect a functioning eye in some patients being considered for facial transplant, according to a study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery—Global Open®, the official open-access medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

• share
• favorite_border

Nationally, more than 15,000 patients are waiting for a liver transplant. Approximately 6,300 persons each year will receive a new liver; 1,400 die waiting. In California, one in four listed for liver transplant will die before an organ becomes available. Fortunately, living donation is now a lifesaving option at UC San Diego Health.

• share
• favorite_border

Someday, cicadas and dragonflies might save your sight. The key to this power lies in their wings, which are coated with a forest of tiny pointed pillars that impale and kill bacterial cells unlucky enough to land on them. Now, scientists report they have replicated these antibacterial nanopillars on synthetic polymers that are being developed to restore vision. The researchers present their work at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

• share
• favorite_border

The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) is one of 16 kidney health organizations uniting to advance new bipartisan legislation that would eliminate barriers to living donation and help increase access to lifesaving transplants. Kidney health providers and patients commend Congress for today’s introduction of the Living Donor Protection Act of 2016 and urge its swift passage to help the more than 100,000 Americans currently waiting for a kidney transplant. The new legislation could potentially save Medicare between $565 million and $1.2 billion over 10 years.

• share
• favorite_border

The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital announce the joint appointment of Dr. W. Kenneth Washburn as director of adult and pediatric transplant programs at each respective hospital, beginning in March.

• share
• favorite_border

Fourteen-year-old Angelynn Luckado’s cystic fibrosis ravaged her organs, leading to an extensive hospital stay, an extremely rare and complicated transplant, and now a hope for a healthier life thanks to an organ donor.

• share
• favorite_border

Surgical teams at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas transplanted the 4000th liver in the history of the hospital’s transplant program February 3rd. The milestone is a first for any hospital system in Texas and one that only two other transplant programs in the country have achieved.

• share
• favorite_border

Just two years old at the time, Zoey Jones was told she would need a heart and lung transplant for her failing organs, a complication due to the single ventricle heart defect she was born with. She was referred to Nationwide Children’s Hospital where they began to prepare for a transplant, when a second look in the catheterization laboratory (cath lab) led doctors to believe her heart and lungs were strong enough to avoid transplant altogether.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins recently received approval from the United Network for Organ Sharing to be the first hospital in the U.S. to perform HIV-positive to HIV-positive organ transplants. The institution will be the first in the nation to do an HIV-positive to HIV-positive kidney transplant and the first in the world to execute an HIV-positive to HIV-positive liver transplant.

• share
• favorite_border

Brianna Lugo, a 20-year-old woman from Lake Villa, Illinois, received a rare living-donor small bowel transplant from her father Dec. 3 at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System. Both patients are now home and doing well.

• share
• favorite_border

As patients in desperate need of a liver transplant lay waiting, many livers that might give them a new life go unused by centers across the nation, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

• share
• favorite_border

Moths sniff out others of their own species using specific pheromone blends. So if you transplant an antenna – the nose, essentially – from one species to another, which blend of pheromones does the moth respond to? The donor species’, or the recipients’? The answer is neither.

• share
• favorite_border

With 56 transplants in more than two years, the UAB Kidney Chain holds the record as the longest living-donor kidney transplant chain anywhere in the world.

• share
• favorite_border

The annual data report from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) reveals both positive and negative trends in kidney disease in the U.S.

• share
• favorite_border

Inside your bones, a spongy substance called marrow produces the red and white blood cells and platelets you need to stay alive and healthy. When blood cancers and certain genetic conditions damage this marrow, it prevents these blood-making factories from functioning effectively.

• share
• favorite_border

More than 120,000 people are currently on the kidney transplant waiting list, some waiting anywhere from four to six years. Some of those people will die before the new kidney comes. Asking a family member or friend to donate a kidney might be difficult, but it has many advantages without affecting the donor.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Built environment factors that motivate people to walk and bike vary by income, University of Washington researchers have found. Neighborhood density, accessible destinations and fewer vehicles were associated with more walking and biking in lower-income groups, while neighborhood attractiveness mattered for higher-income groups.

• share
• favorite_border

Year-old changes to the system that distributes deceased donor kidneys nationwide have significantly boosted transplantation rates for black and Hispanic patients on waiting lists, reducing racial disparities inherent in the previous allocation formula used for decades, according to results of research led by a Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon.

• share
• favorite_border

• Among male kidney transplant candidates, prostate cancer screening was not associated with improved patient survival after transplantation. • Screening increased the time to listing and transplantation for candidates under 70 years old with elevated prostate specific antigen levels. • Compared with candidates who were not screened, screened candidates had a reduced likelihood of receiving a transplant regardless of their screening results.

• share
• favorite_border

As the longest surviving single-lung transplant patient in the United States, and the second-longest known in the world, Smith also planned to release a balloon in honor of the donor who saved her life.

• share
• favorite_border

Toronto General Hospital performs world-first triple transplant combination of double lung, liver and pancreas organs simultaneously