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Higher SARS-CoV-2 Positivity Found Among Kidney Transplant Waitlist Candidates

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Kidney transplant (KT) waitlist candidates may have a higher rate of SARS-CoV-2 positivity than official government data indicate, according to investigators presenting at the virtual American Transplant Congress 2021.

Of 400 waitlist candidates who resided in Georgia counties with an above-average COVID-19 case rate in August 2020, 28 candidates tested positive for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, yielding a 7% positivity rate. (Use of hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis was comparable between KT candidates who tested positive and negative.)

Read full article, here.

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Woman donates kidney to hubby’s ex-wife days after wedding

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Ten years after their first date, Debby Neal-Strickland put on a cream-colored lace gown and married her longtime sweetheart at their Florida church. Two days later, she put on a hospital gown and donated a kidney to Mylaen Merthe — her new husband’s ex-wife.

An unusual story? Yes. But the tale of Jim Merthe and his two wives is a testament to how love and compassion can triumph over division.

Mylaen, 59, had long struggled with kidney disease. By last year, she was ghostly pale with dark circles under her eyes, dragging herself through the workday with no energy. By the time she was admitted to the hospital in November, her kidneys were only functioning at 8%.

Her brother offered to donate a kidney, but wasn’t a match so Debby volunteered.

Read full story, here.

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Kidney Transplantation Not Linked to Higher Prostate Cancer Mortality

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Men with end-stage kidney disease and prostate cancer (PCa) are not more likely to die from the malignancy if they receive a kidney transplant (KT) compared with undergoing dialysis, data presented at the virtual 2021 American Transplant Congress suggest.

Using Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare registry 2004-2015 data, Nagaraju Sarabu, MD, of University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study of 1959 men diagnosed with PCa following a diagnosis of end-stage kidney disease: 1478 on dialysis and 481 with a functioning kidney transplant.

In adjusted analyses, KT recipients had a significant 45% reduced risk for overall mortality compared with dialysis patients, but the groups did not differ significantly with regard to PCa-specific mortality, Dr Sarabu’s team reported.

Read full article, here.

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He died of a brain aneurysm, and his heart was preserved for donation with warm-temperature ‘perfusion.’ The technique may help others.

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The doctors said there was no hope. Alex Anaya was just 29, yet a weakened blood vessel had ruptured in his brain, and surgeons couldn’tsave him.

Family members decided that he should be removed from a ventilator, and they gathered at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to say goodbye. His heart would keep beating for a while on its own, but soon he would die.

Then the family was approached by a coordinator from Gift of Life, a nonprofit that arranges organ transplants in the Philadelphia region. She told them, gently, that it might be possible to restart Anaya’s heart and save someone else. But it would require the use of a new device to “perfuse” the organ with a warm solution of nutrients and oxygenated blood, allowing it to beat outside his body until it was time for the transplant.

Read full story, here.

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Kidney Transplant Rates Recovering After Plummeting Early in the Pandemic

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During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in March-April 2020, kidney waitlist registrations and kidney transplantations plummeted in the United States, followed by encouraging recovery, investigators reported at the virtual American Transplant Congress 2021.

Allan B. Massie, PhD, and collaborators from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, compared expected with actual rates of transplant services from March to October 2020 using data from The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Kidney waitlisting dropped from 19% below normal in March to 45% below normal in May, then showed steady recovery through October, when new listings were only 6% below normal, the investigators reported. Waitlist deaths peaked at 72% above expected in March-April, declined to 7% above expected in June, then climbed again to 16% above expected in August, during a second wave of COVID-19 infection.

Read full article, here.

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DaVita and the NKF Join Forces to Improve Health Equity in Kidney Transplantation

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ilot program to provide education and support for kidney patients seeking living donors

DaVita Kidney Care and the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) today announced their collaboration in launching an innovative, yearlong pilot aimed at improving health equity in kidney transplantation with a newly-developed program within NKF’s THE BIG ASK: THE BIG GIVE platform. 

“Many people never find a living donor simply because they are afraid to ask,” said Kevin Longino, CEO, National Kidney Foundation and a kidney transplant patient. “NKF’s THE BIG ASK: THE BIG GIVE platform helps patients and families learn how to find a living donor and we are grateful to DaVita for their support in helping to reach patients in underserved areas.”

The pilot will take place in Colorado, New York, Minnesota and New Mexico. DaVita and NKF carefully selected these states because each has a unique opportunity to improve health equity in kidney transplantation. In addition, both organizations have a strong, on-the-ground presence in these states, with operational teams that are well connected to the transplant and health care ecosystem. 

Read more here.

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CareDx To Acquire Transplant Hero Medication Management App – M&A

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The acquisition of Transplant Hero builds on AlloCare, the comprehensive CareDx mobile health app for managing the day-to-day health of patients before and after transplant. Transplant Hero strengthens CareDx’s focus on the transplant patient journey and adds to its growing digital portfolio which includes a robust suite of cloud-based solutions and software for transplant centers and dialysis providers.

Read more here.

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Huntington Beach Man Receives First Minimally Invasive Double-Lung Transplant In US

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 Huntington Beach man has had a second chance at life after he received the nation’s first ever minimally invasive double-lung transplant. 57-year-old Frank Coburn was beginning his second chapter, enjoying life with his loving bride of more than 30 years, and the success of his two adult daughters, when the avid biker started experiencing shortness of breath.

“I would always cough on an intake, and I’d have to kind of belly breathe,” Coburn told CBS2 News This Morning’s DeMarco Morgan.

In March of 2020, he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis.

Read the full story, here.

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Handyman donates kidney after being helped out of homelessness

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A handyman was honored to donate his kidney and pay it forward after another member of the community helped him out in his time of need.

Dan Reynolds was hired to do some work six years ago when he was spotted standing in the snow at a bus stop in Maryland.

Doug Shumway decided to give him a ride on that cold winter day and invited Reynolds to do some contracting work and had him fix some plumbing issues.

It was then that Shumway learned that Reynolds had been living out of a van for the last two years.

When he revealed he was homeless, Shumway invited Reynolds to move in with him. It wasn’t long before Reynolds became a fixture in the community doing work for neighbors.

Read full story, here.

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Every Breath You Take: The Life of a Lung Transplant

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When you have Cystic Fibrosis – a genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections – a lung transplant can be a life-saving surgery. But what if you’re not sure you want it? And if you do get it, what new challenges will they present to your newly-extended life? 

Hear an audio documentary by Audacious Executive Producer Catie Talarski that follows two CF patients for one year as they grapple with the choice to pursue lung transplants. Then, she catches up with one of the subjects 10 years later.

Listen to it here.

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