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Should Transplant Recipients Have Pets?

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Alex Harrison-Flaxman is a kidney transplant recipient who understands the rollercoaster of emotions that patients face after transplant.

“Being a transplant recipient is an absolute blessing, but it doesn’t come without its challenges,” says Harrison-Flaxman. “It’s a constant battle to stay vigilant and be on top of your care. But having my dog Bendel makes it a little more bearable when my anxiety is high, and the road ahead seems impossible.”

Up to 63% of transplant recipients experience depression or anxiety during the first several years post-transplant.1 This makes organ transplant recipients ideal candidates for owning pets that—through companionship—provide emotional support, ease anxiety, depression, and other phobias.

Read the full article, here.

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Q&A: Transplant Patient Immune Response to COVID-19 Vaccines

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CareDx and the Lung Transplant Foundation hosted  the “COVID-19 Vaccines and the Latest Data on Immune Response in Transplant Recipients” webinar on May 12, 2021. More than 1,000 transplant recipients, caregivers, and clinicians tuned in to the live webinar to hear the latest research on the immune response of transplant recipients to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dorry Segev, MD, PhD, a transplant surgeon from Johns Hopkins Medicine, and one of the authors of a recently published study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that looked at the antibody response in more than 650 transplant patients, presented findings and answered questions.

Below is a summary of some of the questions posed during the session.

Read the full Q&A, here.

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Young Race Car Driver Raises Awareness About Life-Saving Transplants

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Jeannine Williams saw the writing on the wall. It had been nearly 30 years since a hepatitis infection resulted in the need for a liver transplant at age 22. Decades of taking the immunosuppressive drugs required post-transplant had enabled Jeannine to live a full life, giving birth to two children even though doctors had originally predicted she’d survive just five years.

But those same life-saving drugs had taken a toll. In the years since receiving a new liver, Jeannine, 54, had vanquished breast cancer and multiple skin cancers, brought on because her immune system was suppressed. Then in 2018 came the unwelcome news she’d been expecting: Jeannine, from Oakley, California, needed a kidney transplant.

Read Clayton’s and Jeannine’s full story, here.

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Recipe: Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese, Candied Pecans, and Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette

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If you need a healthy and kidney-friendly dish for any occasion, you can’t go wrong with this recipe for Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese, Candied Pecans, and Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Courtesy of Mike Hargett of Battle Ground, Washington, the recipe is high in folate, magnesium, vitamin C, and fiber.

When choosing beets for the recipe, Mike recommends using “Beets by Mike,” which he says are better than “Beats by Dre.” 

Find the recipe, here.

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Organ donations held almost steady during the pandemic, as the U.S. transplant system scrambled to keep going

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“This is not a pandemic “silver lining” story.

This is a could-have-been-far-worse story about how the pandemic did not fuel a catastrophe in transplantation or worsen the persistent gap between people who need organs and the donations that supply them. But just as the pandemic is not over yet, neither is the potential danger of related ramifications for people whose organs may fail and need replacement.

Covid-19’s first surge last year flooded hospitals in the United States and nearly drowned those in the Northeast. They couldn’t find enough personal protective equipment for beleaguered workers, they didn’t yet have reliable testing for patients or staff, and they couldn’t know when the nightmare might end. Within that maelstrom, many transplants had to be put on hold: How do you perform life-saving operations when the supply of already scarce donor organs nose-dives?”

Read more, here.

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Monoclonal Antibodies Safe for Organ Recipients with Covid-19

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Solid organ transplant recipients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 can be safely treated with monoclonal antibody therapy, a new study confirmed.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, reported that monoclonal antibody treatment was associated with favorable outcomes with minimal side effects in the first solid organ transplant patients to receive the infusions for Covid-19 at their center.

None of the 73 patients died, required mechanical ventilation, or experienced organ rejection.

Eleven of the patients (15%) had emergency department visits within 28 days of monoclonal antibody infusion, including 9 who were hospitalized for a median of 4 days. Just one patient required ICU admission for a non-Covid-19 indication.

Read more, here.

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