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Should You Recommend a COVID Booster to Patients?

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“Certain at-risk groups need to consider extra protection now.”

What’s the Current Booster Landscape?

“Several studies offer preliminary evidence on the benefits of boosters, especially for certain populations. A recent French study in JAMA showed that about 50% of 159 kidney transplant patients with low or no measurable antibodies after two doses of an mRNA vaccine mounted a response with a third shot, and with no serious side effects or rejection episodes. A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine also showed the benefits of a third dose in solid organ transplant patients. Pfizer data (that has not yet been peer reviewed) show antibody levels rise 11-fold in patients ages 65 to 75 after a booster.

Around the world, some countries and localities have gotten an early start on boosting. Boosters are being offered to patients over 60 years old in Israel. France is giving a booster dose to the severely immunocompromised 4 weeks after the second dose, and Hungary, Turkey, Thailand, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates are starting booster programs. The Mississippi Health Department is now recommending physicians consider boosters for the immunocompromised.”

Read more, here.

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Diabetes Patients on Dialysis See Better Sugar Control With Artificial Pancreas

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“Adults with type 2 diabetes and end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis benefitted from an artificial pancreas in a small, randomized crossover trial.

Patients using a fully automated closed loop system spent a longer amount of time in target glucose range versus those using standard insulin therapy (52.8% vs 37.7%, respectively, P<0.001), reported Charlotte Boughton, MD, PhD, of University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories in England, and colleagues.”

Read more, here.

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Man’s Sudden Heart Failure Led to US’ First Artificial Heart Transplant

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“Rachel Moore thought her husband Matthew was pulling one of his usual stunts. The 39-year-old, who’d won Rachel over almost 14 years before with his sly wit, suddenly slumped over in his hospital recliner at Duke University Hospital, where he’d arrived June 15 expecting to undergo heart bypass surgery

But when she saw her husband’s tongue sticking out and his eyes dilate, “I started screaming,” Rachel, a nurse, told Insider.

For 45 minutes, clinicians performed chest compressions. They shocked his heart 16 times. Finally, he stabilized, but his life remained in danger for weeks as machines — and five more shocks — kept him alive.”

Read more, here.

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Howard University Surgeon Clive Callender Heralded for Minority Organ Transplantation Achievements

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“Legendary Howard University transplant surgeon Dr. Clive O. Callender has been honored by the 2021 American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) with its Pioneer Award, the most distinguished award bestowed by the organization upon an individual. The award comes as National Minority Donor Awareness Month is observed in the month of August. 

In a video message announcing the award, ASTS past president Dr. Marwan Abouljoud said that when he started his career 28 years ago in Detroit, all of his learnings and readings on transplant awareness and organ donation kept leading him back to the works of one individual.”

Watch the video and read more, here.

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National Minority Donor Awareness Month

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“National Minority Donor Awareness Month is a collaborative initiative of the National Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation Multicultural Action Group (NMAG) to save and improve the quality of life of diverse communities by creating a positive culture for organ, eye and tissue donation. National Minority Donor Awareness Month stems from National Minority Donor Awareness Week, founded in 1996 by the National Minority Organ Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP) to bring heightened awareness to donation and transplantation in multicultural communities – focusing primarily on African American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American communities.”

Learn more about upcoming events, here.

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Pharma CEO Faces Personal Fight for a New Breed of Organ Donors

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“A doctor at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., had just told Rothblatt and her wife, Bina, that the couple’s youngest daughter, 9-year-old Jenesis, had a rare medical condition that likely gave her three years to live. The arteries between Jenesis’s heart and lungs had narrowed, choking off oxygen and placing an unsustainable burden on her heart as it struggled to send blood through her thinning blood vessels, like trying to push water through a hose with a kink in it. The condition, known as pulmonary arterial hypertension, was progressive, and there were no approved treatments, short of a lung transplant—almost unheard-of in children.”

Read more, here.

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Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine, What Kidney Patients Need to Know

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Most doctors agree that the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine for people with kidney disease at any stage, including those on dialysis and those with a kidney transplant, are much greater than the risk of serious complications from the virus than from the vaccine.

Dialysis patients who contract COVID-19 are at extremely high risk of short-term mortality, possibly higher than 20 percent.

The National Kidney Foundation, American Society of Nephrology, and American Society of Transplantation all recommend that people with kidney disease or kidney transplant be vaccinated for COVID-19.

Vaccines are one of the most effective tools to protect your health and prevent disease. Vaccines work with your body’s natural defenses so your body will be ready to fight a virus if you are exposed (also called immunity).”

Read more, here.

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Immunocompromised to unvaccinated: You’re still a community

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3 Clark County women hope unvaccinated people stop and consider those who are at high risk of serious complications from COVID-19

“As people across the United States continue to flout the COVID-19 vaccine and cases of the delta variant surge, those living with compromised immune systems have a dire plea: consider the safety of others.

Jennifer Browning, Nicole Arneson and Laura Ellsworth are three friends living in Clark County who have all had kidney transplants. For them, life during the pandemic means strictly following the same COVID measures mandated for the general public before a vaccine ever became available.

“We don’t do the things that vaccinated people are doing and because we’ve been told by our medical providers that you need to continue to live as if you’ve been unvaccinated,” said Ellsworth.”

Watch the interview here.

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NKF Publishes Recommendations to Move Thousands of Patients from Dialysis to Transplant

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“The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) releases today a position paper developed by 16 experts in nephrology and transplantation from 13 institutions that plots a path for research and innovation to address the most pressing barriers to kidney transplant access, organ availability, and long-term allograft survival in the United States. 

This ambitious agenda seeks to direct research investment to optimize equity, efficiency, and patient-centered outcomes and maximize the benefits of transplantation in our country. Today, while nearly 100,000 people are on the waitlist for a kidney transplant, only 22,817 Americans received a kidney transplant in 2020.

“While kidney transplantation provides the best treatment option for kidney failure to thousands of patients each year, the goal of universal access to this treatment remains elusive,” said lead author Krista L. Lentine, MD, PhD, Saint Louis University Center for Abdominal Transplantation. “Addressing the priorities outlined in this research agenda has the potential to transform kidney patient care by expanding opportunities for safe living donation, improving waitlist access and transplant readiness, maximizing use of available deceased donor organs, and extending graft longevity.”

To assess the knowledge gaps amenable to more research, NKF convened an expert panel to develop a research agenda aimed at advancing access to kidney transplantation for all patients who could benefit, with attention to reducing/eliminating racial and ethnic disparities and supporting the goal of “one transplant for life” for organ recipients.”

Read full article, here.

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Call in the T-Cell Cavalry to Fight COVID in the Immunocompromised

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“Last year was one of collective confinement. The majority of us shuttered our doors to visitors, worked from home, and ventured out sparingly in hopes of evading the grasp of COVID-19. Now in 2021, thanks to vaccination rollout, those who have been vaccinated are hopefully on the path to normalcy. But not everyone is so fortunate. For some, 2021 will bring more isolation and loneliness than ever before, which is hard to imagine. I’m talking about immunocompromised adults and children. While much of the rest of the populace clinks glasses, hugs loved ones, and joins parties, immunocompromised individuals do not have the security of an effective vaccine, and for their health and safety will maintain their distance and watch the social revelry from the sidelines.”

Read more, here.

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