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Tips on How to Handle PH and Transplant Baggage

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What is baggage? According to Merriam-Webster, it’s one of three things: suitcases, transportable equipment, or intangible things such as feelings and circumstances that get in the way. What kind of baggage do people living with pulmonary hypertension (PH) often take everywhere they go?

The answer: all of it!

In addition to emotional baggage, they have the burden of emergency preparedness and must have a suitcase packed and medical equipment and supplies ready for an unplanned trip to the hospital. Read the full story in Pulmonary Hypertension News.

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Racial disparities in death due to COVID-19 persist among lung transplant recipients in US

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Racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality persist in the U.S. among lung transplant recipients, according to data presented at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions.

“Our group was interested in trying to look at disparities and come up with ways of not only identifying but finding ways to intervene to decrease the disparities observed within the cardiac surgery population, which lung transplant recipients fall into,” Stanley B. Wolfe, MD, cardiac research fellow in surgery at the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio. “We know that the transplant population, whether it be lung, heart, kidney, etc., have very close follow-up compared to a standard patient, but they also are immunosuppressed, which increases your overall risk of getting severe COVID-19, as well as dying from COVID-19.” Read the full story in Healio.

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COVID-19 Vaccination Safe, Lowers Risk of Infection in Heart Transplant Recipients

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These findings suggest the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for patients with OHT.

New findings suggest patients with orthotopic heart transplant (OHT) who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 are at greater risk of severe infection and death in comparison to immunocompetent individuals, making COVID-19 vaccination an important priority.

In fact, COVID-19 vaccination had associations with fewer symptomatic COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths and no heart transplant-specific adverse events.
Read the complete story in HCPLive here.

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Greater coffee consumption correlates with lower risk for AKI, compared with no coffee

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Compared with individuals who never drink coffee, those who consume a large amount of coffee are at a lower risk for incident AKI, according to data published in Kidney International Reports.

“Habitual coffee consumption is associated with the prevention of chronic and degenerative diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and liver disease,” Kalie L. Tommerdahl, MD, of the department of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital Colorado and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Colorado, and colleagues wrote.  Read the complete story in Healio.

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Pediatric transplant patients may skip adult appointments

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Study finds more than one in four patients attend an average of less than one appointment per year

Young adults who received organ transplants as children may not be regularly attending their doctor appointments after leaving their pediatric providers. Missing these appointments is associated with longer and more frequent hospitalizations and poorer medication adherence, according to a new study. Read the full story in UGA Today.

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AI could save lives by identifying relapse risk in potential liver transplant patients

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Predicting the variables that could lead to damaging alcohol use in post-surgical cases may spur lifesaving interventions, a USC study finds.

A screening tool developed with artificial intelligence and trained on hundreds of hours of patient interviews could flag risks for relapse in liver transplant patients with alcohol use disorder — and prompt precise interventions, according to a new USC study.
Read the full story from USC News.

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Video therapy improves medication adherence for adolescent heart transplant recipients

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A digital medication adherence program with virtual video check-ins was associated with adolescent heart transplant recipients taking more of their medications as prescribed 6 months after the intervention, data from a pilot study show.

“Medication nonadherence is a significant problem which can lead to graft failure and patient mortality,” Dipankar Gupta, MBBS, DCH, MD, assistant professor of pediatric cardiology at the Congenital Heart Center at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, University of Florida, told Healio. Read the full story in Healio.

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Giving a kidney started with giving knowledge

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Roxana Chicas, PhD, RN, a research professor in Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, rued her nontraditional academic path until a mentor reassured her: “The teacher always arrives when the student is ready.” 

That advice about timing resonated last month as she prepared to donate a kidney to her mentor, professor and faculty colleague. Professor and biostatistician Vicki Stover Hertzberg, PhD, who directs the school’s Center for Data Science, had been waiting nine months for a transplant after being diagnosed with kidney failure.

The two professors’ personal relationship is only one aspect of their remarkable story.
Read the full story from Emory News Center.

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Selena S. Li, MD: The US Heart Allocation System and Transplant Bridge Devices

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The Massachusetts General Hospital investigator discusses how LVADs and mechanical circulatory supports have altered the national heart donor strategy.

A new assessment from a team at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) sought to interpret the effects of the current US heart donor allocation system on the use of mechanical circulatory supports (MCSs) as a transplant bridge.
Read the full story in HCPLive here.

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