By Beatrice Concepcion, MD
It has been almost 70 years since the first successful living donor kidney transplant between identical twin brothers was performed at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.
Since then, tremendous advances have been made in the specialty, particularly in overcoming immunologic barriers to transplantation, including modern-day immunosuppression.
Read more in Healio.
By Shannon Firth
Physicians and advocates explored ways to improve access to clinical trials, dialysis, and transplants for racial and ethnic minorities with chronic kidney disease during a webinaropens in a new tab or window hosted by U.S. News & World Report and sponsored by the American Kidney Fund (AKF).
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, people with chronic kidney disease, particularly those in kidney failure, could not isolate the way other people could because they needed to go to dialysis or other medical appointments, explained LaVarne Burton, president and CEO of the AKF.
Read the full article in MedPage Today.
CareDx Showcases Digital Health Portfolio at 31st Annual UNOS Transplant Management Forum
BRISBANE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– CareDx, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNA), a leading precision medicine company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value healthcare solutions for transplant patients and caregivers – today announced that it will showcase its digital health portfolio and host a symposium which addresses barriers in access to transplantation at the 31st Annual UNOS Transplant Management Forum (TMF) taking place May 16-18 in Denver, Colorado. CareDx is the leading Diamond level sponsor of this year’s UNOS TMF.
“Improving the transplant journey is at the heart of everything we do, and we are thrilled to showcase how our investment in cutting-edge digital health solutions is making a meaningful impact across the board with ever-increasing adoption,” said Kashif Rathore, Chief of Patient and Digital Solutions at CareDx. “CareDx is proud to participate in this important yearly forum to demonstrate how our connected set of transplant management solutions enables more cohesive care in the complex transplant ecosystem.” Read the complete press release on CareDx.com.
A machine-learning algorithm could offer personalized predictions of life expectancy following lung transplantation, research suggests.
The random survival forests (RSF) model had “excellent performance” in predicting both survival overall and at the specific time points of one month and a year, revealed the researchers. Read more in Inside Precision Medicine.
By Caitlyn Stulpin
Nearly 10% of solid organ transplant recipients may develop bacteremia in the first year after transplant, according to a study published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.
“There are limited contemporary robust data on the epidemiology of bacteremia during the first fragile year after a solid organ transplantation,” Dionysios Neofytos, MD, specialist in the division of infectious diseases at the University Hospital of Geneva, told Healio. Read more in Healio.
By Michael Monostra
More than 80% of adults with diabetes using continuous glucose monitoring reported at least one instance of needing to stop using their device due to medical care or a device-related problem, according to survey findings.
“CGM disruption is the rule rather than the exception,” Alexis M. McKee, MD, CDCES, assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told Healio. Read the full story in Healio.
In 2021 Maureen Murphy answered the call to give a part of herself–literally. When she found out her friend Kim Moulton needed a kidney transplant, she offered to be her donor. “I had everything I needed in life, so I thought this was something I could do to help,” Maureen says. She contacted the Dartmouth Hitchcock Transplant center, where Kim was a patient of Michael Daily, MD, section chief of Solid Organ Transplantation at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, and told them she wanted to donate one of her kidneys to Kim. Read more in Dartmouth Health.
MADISON, Wis. – On Dec. 13, 2022, at seven-and-a-half months pregnant, Susan Siegenthaler went to an emergency department in Madison.
She was an otherwise healthy 38-year-old, but her gut told her something was wrong. She was experiencing shortness of breath, a persistent cough and significantly swollen feet.
Read more in WisBusiness.
By Jennifer Couzin-Frankel
On a chilly holiday Monday in January 2020, a medical milestone passed largely unnoticed. In a New York City operating room, surgeons gently removed the heart from a 43-year-old man who had died and shuttled it steps away to a patient in desperate need of a new one.
More than 3500 people in the United States receive a new heart each year. But this case was different—the first of its kind in the country. Read the full article in Science.
by Mary Corey
A recent study conducted by a team of University of Michigan medical researchers may help to identify which patients suffering from acute liver failure need liver transplants to live and which can survive without them, helping hospitals more effectively allocate organ donations. With the overall mortality rate of acute liver failure reaching almost 50%, the researchers set out to find a way to tell which patients most urgently need a liver transplant and which can likely survive without. Read more in The Michigan Daily.