Patients with liver cancer can be cured with a liver transplant. But because of the shortage of donated organs, these patients often die waiting for a liver. That’s because most transplant centers predominantly use livers from donors who die from brain death.
Lung transplant candidates who are about 5’3” or shorter have longer waiting times than taller candidates and are more likely to die within a year while waiting for a lung transplant, according to a study presented at the 2015 American Thoracic Society International Conference.
Obesity is a complicating factor for many surgical patients. In a recent study published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that losing weight can have a positive impact on outcomes for lung transplant patients.
A study, published online ahead of print May 14 in the American Journal of Transplantation, revealed that there are nearly 400 HIV-positive potential organ donors who could be sources of donated organs annually for HIV-positive patients waiting for organ donations.
A fairly simple and ethical change in policy would greatly expand the nation’s organ pool while respecting autonomy, choice, and vulnerability of a deceased’s family or authorized caregiver, according to ethicists at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Research found no racial or ethnic disparities among patients who participate in the Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT) Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). The results were published in a recent issue of the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.
An international team of gastroenterologists, pediatricians, natural products chemists, and veterinarians, working with zebrafish models and mouse cell cultures have discovered that a chemical found in Australian plants provides insights into the cause of a rare and debilitating disorder affecting newborns called biliary atresia, the most common indication for a liver transplant in children.
Mayo Clinic transplant researchers will present findings from nearly 20 studies at the American Transplant Congress in Philadelphia, Penn., on May 2-5. Mayo Clinic is nationally recognized for research and clinical success in transplantation, and performs over 1,000 solid organ transplants each year.
• Members of the public in Australia considered reimbursement and justifiable recompensation of costs related to organ donation to be legitimate ways of supporting living donors.
• Financial payment beyond reimbursement was regarded as morally reprehensible.
Heart transplant surgeons from Mayo Clinic are presenting findings from three recent clinical studies involving heart transplant patients. The presentations took place during the 2015 International Society of Heart & Lung Transplant (ISHLT) in Nice, France, on April 15–18.
The Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute completed 120 adult heart transplants and two adult heart-lung transplants in 2014, setting a new national standard for the most adult heart transplants performed in a single year.
A new study from the Liver Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests that standard assessments that nurses already use to care for patients can be mined for data that significantly improve the ability to predict survival following liver transplantation and may help improve patient outcomes.
It’s been 10 years since Andrew Gaumer received a life-saving heart and double-lung transplant at Loyola University Medical Center. “Every day since then has been a gift,” he said.
The shortage of kidneys needed for organ transplantation in the U.S. can be alleviated in part by using select kidneys with Acute Kidney Injury (AKI), resulting in safe and positive outcomes, according to research conducted at Mayo Clinic in Arizona.
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus)-positive kidney transplant patients experienced superior outcomes when compared to kidney transplant patients with Hepatitis C and those infected with both HIV and Hepatitis C, according to a study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and published online in Kidney International.
At 77, John Bunton rode a ski lift up a mountain near Ogden, Utah, and spent an hour hiking around at 11,000 feet, admiring the craggy scenery and breathing in deeply the crisp mountain air. In June, he plans to walk his daughter down the aisle
• For older patients in need of a kidney transplant, rapid transplantation from an older deceased donor is superior to delayed transplantation from a younger donor.
• Kidneys from older donors do not have sufficient longevity to provide younger patients with a lifetime of kidney function, but they do have sufficient longevity to provide older patients who have a shorter life expectancy with a lifetime of kidney function.
Kidney transplantation outcomes from deceased African-American donors may improve through rapid testing for apolipoprotein L1 gene (APOL1) renal risk variants at the time of organ recovery, according to a new study led by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Publicly insured Americans who undergo lung transplantation for cystic fibrosis fare markedly worse in the long run than both publicly insured patients in the United Kingdom and privately insured Americans, according to the results of a study conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and U.K. colleagues working in that nation’s government-funded National Health Service.
• Compared with uninfected (HIV-/HCV-) kidney transplant recipients, mono-infected HIV+ (HIV+/HCV-) recipients had similar 5-year and 10-year kidney survival rates, while HIV+ recipients co-infected with HCV (HIV+/HCV+) had worse kidney survival rates.
• Patient survival among mono-infected HIV+ recipients was similar to uninfected recipients but was significantly lower for co-infected recipients.
Researchers have pinpointed the immune system mechanism that allows a kidney transplant to be accepted without lifelong immunosuppressive drugs, a significant step toward reducing or eliminating the need for costly and potentially toxic immunosuppressant drugs and improving long-term transplant success.
Since implementation of a medical need-based allocation system of donor lungs in 2005, double-lung transplantation has been associated with better graft survival than single-lung transplantation in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF); at 5 years, there has been no survival difference between single- and double-lung transplant recipients in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a study in the March 3 issue of JAMA.
A liver transplant and the right follow-up care have Mati Muñoz, a patient at the liver transplant center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, feeling younger and stronger at 65 than she has felt in a decade.
Among patients with severe aplastic anemia who received stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor, longer leukocyte (white blood cells) telomere length (a structure at the end of a chromosome) was associated with increased overall survival at 5 years, according to a study in the February 10 issue of JAMA.
Richard Kim, MD, a cardiac surgeon at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, recently used a 3D printed heart as a model to plan a life-saving procedure for his young patient, Esther Perez.
A unique new method to treat a specific group of patients who are at greater risk of rejecting a donor lung, allowing them to live longer after transplant without rejection, has been developed by the Toronto Lung Transplant Program at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network.
Lung transplant patients who receive lungs from heavy drinkers are nearly nine times more likely to experience a life-threatening complication called primary graft dysfunction. The study raises the question whether a history of alcohol abuse should exclude use of donor lungs.
UCLA transplantation researchers have developed a novel method that more accurately calculates the risk of disease recurrence in liver cancer patients who have undergone a liver transplant, providing a new tool to help physicians make treatment and surveillance decisions.
Loyola University Medical Center performed 51 lung transplants in 2014, the most ever by a single center in Illinois. The previous Illinois record for lung transplants performed in a single year, also set by Loyola, was 50 lung transplants in 1993.
Fewer new cases of end-stage renal disease are being reported in the United States and mortality rates are declining, indicating that patients on dialysis or with a kidney transplant are living longer.
Jim Ely tackles life like Mean Joe Greene tackled running backs. A banker, he also worked weekends as a football referee for 38 years and still, at age 83, works as home-game timekeeper for the Dallas Cowboys.
Mayo Clinic's campus in Phoenix, Arizona, has been identified as having the highest one-year patient survival rate in the U.S. for adult liver transplantation. The statistics include both deceased and living-donor liver transplants.
The Mount Sinai Health System is pleased to announce that Ron Shapiro, MD, is the new surgical director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute.
Ice poses major impediments to winter travel, accumulating on car windshields and airplane wings and causing countless unsuspecting pedestrians to dramatically lose their balance. A team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) has developed a new way to prevent ice buildup on surfaces like airplane wings, finding inspiration in an unusual source: the poison dart frog.
• Living organ donors who later need kidney transplants have much shorter waiting times, and they receive higher quality kidneys compared with similar people on the waiting list who were not organ donors.
Mrs. Linss’ medical problem was diagnosed as primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), a disease in which the bile ducts are damaged, causing bile to build up in the liver.
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found living kidney donors were more likely to be diagnosed with gestational hypertension (high blood pressure) or preeclampsia than non-donors.
Patients with end-stage lung disease due to systemic sclerosis should not simply be denied lung transplantation because of short- and long-term survival concerns due to extra-pulmonary factors, according to new research findings presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in Boston.
Among kidney transplant recipients, a 3-month course of the antibiotic levofloxacin following transplantation did not prevent the major complication known as BK virus from appearing in the urine. The intervention was associated with an increased risk of adverse events such as bacterial resistance, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the American Society of Nephrology’s annual Kidney Week meeting.
A new treatment regimen for hepatitis C, the most common cause of liver cancer and transplantation, has produced results that will transform treatment protocols for transplant patients, according to research published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.