Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s (RWJUH) Kidney Transplant Program has been named one of 53 hospitals in the United States with the best organ transplant outcomes, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.
• From 2001 to 2012, HIV+ kidney failure patients on the transplant waiting list were 28% less likely to receive a transplant compared with their HIV- counterparts.
• They were half as likely to receive a kidney from a living donor.
University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers screened 10,000 colonies of bacteria found on the epidermis to determine how many had antimicrobial properties and at what rate these are found on healthy and non-healthy skin. In a paper published in Science Translation Medicine, the team reports isolating and growing good bacteria that produce antimicrobial peptides and successfully transplanting it to treat patients with the most common type of eczema, known as atopic dermatitis.
University of Virginia Health System has named Jose Oberholzer, MD, a researcher and surgeon who has performed more than 1,000 transplant-related surgeries, as the new director of the Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center. Oberholzer, 49, comes to UVA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he has served as Chief of the Division of Transplantation and Director of the Islet and Pancreas Transplant Program since 2007.
A multidisciplinary team of surgeons, physicians and other health professionals recently completed a near-total face transplant on a Wyoming man on Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus. The extensive, life-changing surgery will improve the patient’s ability to chew, swallow, speak, breathe and smell.
• During rejection of a transplanted kidney, certain immune cells transform into connective tissue cells, which produce collagen and other fibers.
• This transition, which is mediated by the TGF-/Smad3 signaling pathway, leads to scarring and decreased kidney function.
For patients undergoing total hip or knee replacement, smoking is associated with an increased risk of infectious (septic) complications requiring repeat surgery, reports a study in the February 15 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
Ask any doctor what can be done to maintain a healthy heart and the answer will most likely be eat healthy and exercise regularly. But what happens when someone's heart is not healthy and does not pump blood properly?
Jaromir Bobek of Harris Health System's Ben Taub Hospital prides himself on his cardiology team's preparation and attention to detail. The service line routinely receives national recognition for its expertise and quick treatment of some of the most severe heart attack cases.
• Higher degrees of linguistic isolation were linked with a lower likelihood of transitioning from inactive to active status on the kidney transplant waiting list and with incomplete transplant evaluations.
• The association of linguistic isolation appeared to be most influential among Hispanic transplant candidates.
Researchers at Mount Sinai Health System have discovered a way to predict whether blood cancer patients who received a bone marrow transplant will develop graft-versus-host disease, a common and often lethal complication, according to a study published in JCI (The Journal of Clinical Investigation) Insight.
A single blood test and basic information about a patient’s medical status can indicate which patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) are likely to benefit from a stem cell transplant, according to new research by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce a new, long-term publishing partnership with the The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons® (ABJS). Beginning in 2018, the journal’s 65th anniversary, Wolters Kluwer will publish Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® (CORR®), the specialty-leading journal of ABJS.
Physicians at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center report they have successfully treated 16 patients with a rare and lethal form of bone marrow failure called severe aplastic anemia using partially matched bone marrow transplants followed by two high doses of a common chemotherapy drug.
In a bold and very challenging move, thoracic surgeons at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network removed severely infected lungs from a dying mom, keeping her alive without lungs for six days, so that she could recover enough to receive a life-saving lung transplant.
Rush University Medical Center’s solid organ transplant program has better-than-expected rates of one-year adult patient survival after liver and kidney transplantation, according to the most recent transplantation report released by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). These rates makes Rush’s program unique to Chicago and among the nation’s best.
Children with autism may benefit from fecal transplants – a method of introducing donated healthy microbes into people with gastrointestinal disease to rebalance the gut. Behavioral symptoms of autism and gastrointestinal distress often go hand-in-hand, and both improved when a small group of children with the disorder underwent fecal transplant and subsequent treatment.
Last year, Shirley Polk’s life changed forever. On Friday, it changed again, thanks to a meeting she had with 15 strangers who helped save her life.
Last September, the 67-year old, whose liver and kidney suddenly failed after she developed acute autoimmune disease, received a transplant of both organs at Reagan UCLA Medical Center. On Jan. 13, at an event arranged by UCLA, she met 15 of the 59 strangers whose blood donations made possible the transplant surgeries that saved her life. Thanks to her donors’ generosity, Polk was transfused with 32 units of whole blood, 27 units of plasma and 11 units of platelets.
With a new $1.4 million award from the U.S. Department of Transportation, researchers at the University of Arkansas and their collaborators at five other institutions have renewed the status of the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center, or MarTREC, as a Tier 1 University Transportation Center.
Researchers at the University Health Network have found that when treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (RCDI), a single fecal transplantation delivered by enema is no more effective than the existing standard of care for RCDI, administration of oral vancomycin taper.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles performs milestone 300th pediatric liver transplant when father donates tissue to son; family also gets a visit from CHLA's first-ever living donor liver patient.
• In a study of children with kidney failure who were followed for a median of 7.1 years, black children had a 36% higher risk of dying than white children. The increase risk was mostly attributed to differences in access to transplantation.
• Hispanic children had lower risk of death than white children even though they had lower access to transplantation.
Transplant surgeons recently performed UT Southwestern Medical Center’s first heart/liver transplant – saving the life of a singer/musician from a small Texas town.
Divyank Saini is one of 17 UAB employees who interpret lab samples to determine whether living - and deceased -donor transplants are possible. But Saini wanted to do more, and he did, becoming a donor in the world’s longest kidney transplant chain.
The Fred Hutch Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has earned recognition by the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research for outperforming its expected one-year survival rates for allogeneic transplant patients – those who receive donated adult blood-forming stem cells.
• Risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are higher in older kidney transplant recipients than in older adults in the general population.
• Among kidney transplant recipients, those who developed dementia or Alzheimer’s disease had higher rates of organ loss and patient death than those who did not develop these conditions.
• In a recent study, patient and organ survival rates were similar following transplantation using kidneys from donors aged 50-59 years, 60-69 years, 70-79 years, and ≥80 years.
• Kidney discard rates were similar for kidneys from donors aged 50 to 79 years, but the rate was strikingly higher among kidneys from octogenarian donors.
There's new hope for patients with liver disease who are waiting for a donor liver to become available for transplantation. Doctors at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City have found a way to safely use a damaged liver to replace a dying liver, then cure the damaged liver of its disease.
Mississippi man transplanted at UAB is only the eighth HIV-positive to HIV-positive transplant recipient in the United States since implementation of the HOPE Act.
One in 4 adults have searched online to find others who have the same medical condition, especially chronic conditions. A unique study at FAU explored how transplant recipients use social media sites for support and healing, providing an intimate glimpse into the psyche of transplant recipients worldwide.
Ashish Gupta, MBBS, MPH, a pediatric hematology fellow, will share results from one of the largest quality controlled retrospective studies of children with acquired aplastic anemia. The data makes a compelling case for the pediatric hematology community to revisit the current treatment algorithm for this rare disease.
On November 4, 2016, surgeons at UC San Diego Health performed the region’s first combined heart-liver transplant (CHLT). During the 10-hour surgery, 54-year old Frank “Sonny” Taitano received a healthy heart and liver. This is the first successful heart-liver transplant for San Diego; less than 10 of these surgeries are performed each year in the U.S.
Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) will host surgeons from Greece for an annual symposium dedicated to teaching the latest techniques and innovations in complex hip and knee reconstruction.
It may be possible to safely prevent one of the most common – and costly to treat – infections contracted by hospitalized patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of blood cancers, according to a study from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers will present their findings at this week’s 58th Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting and Exposition in San Diego.
New, pioneered techniques in IVC filter removal are published in the November issue of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology by the interventional radiology team at Rush.
The Peter Munk Cardiac Centre has reached a major milestone within its Mechanical Circulatory Support Program - the largest mechanical heart program in Canada - implanting a 200th patient with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
A new method which doubles the usual time donor lungs can remain outside the body can benefit patients, staff and allow retrieval of donor lungs across greater geographical areas.