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Kidney Failure Patients Face High Rates of Insomnia

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“Many kidney failure patients struggle with insomnia and other types of sleep disorder. Learn how common this is, the risks, what these patients go through, and how to manage it.

Are you or a loved one a chronic kidney disease (CKD) patient that struggles with sleeping well at night? Insomnia is a common sleep disorder among all individuals but especially those with kidney failure. It is characterized by persistent difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep and poor subjective sleep quality. Learn more about insomnia and kidney failure, including the prevalence, causes, potential consequences, and treatment options.”

Learn more here.

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How Technology is Transforming Organ Procurement

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“Every year, more than 100,000 people in the United States wait for an organ donation. More than a dozen people will die each day still waiting. Such is the brutal math and the necessary optimism required to work in the organ procurement world.

For the past several decades, a private network of now 57 organ procurement organizations (OPOs) have sprouted up, all broadly affiliated with UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit which matches donated organs with potential recipients under contract with the federal government.”

Learn more here.

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How do your lungs work?

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“When you breathe, you transport oxygen to the body’s cells to keep them working and clear your system of the carbon dioxide that this work generates. The lungs take in air from the atmosphere and provide a place for oxygen to enter the blood and for carbon dioxide to leave the blood. The lungs are divided into sections, with three on the right and two on the left.”

Learn more from UNOS here.

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CDC: Some Immunocompromised People Can Get a Fourth Dose

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“Moderately or severely immunocompromised” adults ages 18 and up who received an additional dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s mRNA vaccines may now receive a booster dose of Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson at least 6 months after completing their third dose, the agency said.

They added that if a moderate to severely immunocompromised adult has received a two-dose series of Pfizer or Moderna, and more than 28 days has elapsed, that person should “immediately” receive an additional dose of Pfizer or the full-dose volume of 100 μg for Moderna, followed by a single booster dose with any of the three authorized vaccines at least 6 months later.”

Read more, here.

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8 Things To Know About Heart Transplants

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“A heart transplant may be the most dramatic surgery done in the operating room. Each step takes great precision, from the quick, careful journey to retrieve the heart to the preparation of the recipient, who may be gravely ill and bedridden. The best part is the outcome soon after the transplant, when the patient goes home and starts returning to his or her life—whether that means getting married, having babies, running in marathons, or simply breathing massive sighs of relief while strolling around the neighborhood without having to periodically stop to catch a breath.”

Read all 8 here.

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Common Gene Variant May Predict Peritoneal Dialysis Outcomes

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“A common genetic variant predicted poor outcomes from peritoneal dialysis, suggesting a potential factor for patient selection and treatment, researchers found.

Variants in AQP1, the gene that encodes for a key water transport channel across the peritoneal membrane, were associated with decreased ultrafiltration while on peritoneal dialysis and a 70% increased risk of death or failure of that form of dialysis as well.

The 10-16% of patients with the TT genotype of the rs2075574 variant could be good candidates for precision medicine in dialysis treatment, Johann Morelle, MD, PhD, of the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels, Belgium, and colleagues reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.”

Read more here.

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How a drone saved this Canadian patient’slife, who was waiting for a lung transplant

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It took less than 10 minutes for a drone to make an emergency 1.2 kilometer trip to deliver a set of lungs needed for a life-saving transplant.

This world-first took place at the end of September, in Toronto, Canada, AFP reported.

The drone flew over the skies of the Canadian metropolis in the middle of the night, taking off from the UHN’s Toronto Western Hospital and landing on the roof of the General Hospital.

The operation was made possible due to a refrigerated container in light carbon fibre which maintains the thermal parameters of the organ so that it is viable for transplantation.

Read full story here.

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FDA Greenlights ‘Mix and Match’ COVID Boosters

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“The FDA authorized booster doses of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccines and also authorized a “mix and match” or heterologous approach to boosters for all three available vaccines (including Pfizer’s) in the indicated populations, the agency announced on Wednesday.

Ultimately, the FDA went with what was recommended by their advisory panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), which voted for a half-dose Moderna booster in adults ages 65 and up, adults ages 18-64 at high risk of severe COVID, and adults 18-64 with frequent occupational and institutional exposure to SARS-CoV-2, at least 6 months after completing the primary series.”

Learn more here.

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Donor Kidneys Further Out of Reach for Kids Regardless of Race

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“The revamped U.S. kidney prioritization system appeared to better even the field in pediatric kidney transplant wait times — by making organs similarly harder to get for children across races and ethnicities, according to a study.

Measuring time from dialysis to transplantation, Black, Hispanic, or other children of color had significantly longer wait times compared to white children before the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network’s Kidney Allocation System (KAS) changes in 2014, but these differences were reduced afterward, Jill Krissberg, MD, MS, of Lurie’s Children Hospital of Chicago, and colleagues reported.”

Read more here.

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How Genetically Altered Pigs Could Help Kidney Transplantation

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“Just a year or two from now, patients waiting for a human kidney may be able to participate in a trial for a pig kidney, if a short-term experiment at NYU Langone Health in New York City paves the way for trials in patients with end-stage kidney failure.

The successful result was released October 19 and this experiment is the first of its kind. “

Read more here.

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