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Northwestern Medicine Launches a Hispanic Program for Patients With Lung and Thoracic Diseases

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By Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

The Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute Hispanic Program was recently launched to offer personalized care for lung and thoracic patients in their native language, making life-saving care more accessible for the Hispanic community and people who prefer to speak Spanish by removing cultural and linguistic barriers.

Receiving a diagnosis of asthma, lung cancer or respiratory failure can be scary and challenging. Receiving care from a medical team that doesn’t speak your preferred language can make the experience more difficult. The Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute Hispanic Program was recently launched to offer personalized care for lung and thoracic patients in their native language, making life-saving care more accessible for the Hispanic community and people who prefer to speak Spanish by removing cultural and linguistic barriers.
Read the full story in OncLive.

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Racial gaps persist in kidney transplantation, particularly among younger patients

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By Shawn M. Carter

Evident racial gaps in transplant waitlist placement between Black and white patients exist, particularly among younger individuals with kidney failure, new data suggests.

“Racial disparities exist at all steps of the kidney transplant process, including waitlisting,” Jade Buford, MPH, of the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and lead researcher, told Healio.
Read the full story in Healio.

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Drug Prices Are Too Damn High

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— It’s been a long road to Medicare price negotiation … and there’s still work to be done

By N. Adam Brown, MD, MBA

Remember the “Rent is Too Damn High Party from the early 2000s, which starred New York City mayoral and gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan? While this single-issue campaign didn’t find electoral favor, it was attention-grabbing, even earning features on Jimmy Kimmel and Saturday Night Liveopens in a new tab or window.

I’ve been thinking about the campaign’s message as the fever surrounding pharmaceutical pricing has spiked. Read the full story in MedPage Today.

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Organ donation guidelines dependent on transplant center

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By Ask the Doctors

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to a bonus edition of our monthly letters column. Our mailboxes are overflowing, so we’ll get right down to business.

— We recently wrote about living organ donation. That’s when a living person gives an organ, such as a kidney, or part of an organ, such as the liver, to another individual. The column led to a question from a reader in Pennsylvania: “Is there a minimum GFR to become a kidney donor?” she asked. “I recently filled out a registry form for a specific patient but forgot to ask about this.” Read the full story from UCLA Health.

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Kidney transplants usually last 10 to 15 years. Hers made it 50, but now it’s wearing out.

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By Karen Weintraub

Sharon Stakofsky-Davis and Denice Lombard both carry 90-something-year-old kidneys in their 60-something-year-old bodies.

They are outliers in more than just the obvious ways.

Both women received kidneys from their respective fathers when they were young teenagers, after their own kidneys gave out. Read the full story in USA Today.

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Growth hormone lowers liver fat for adults with obesity, steatotic liver disease

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By Michael Monostra

Adults with overweight or obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease had a more than 5% reduction in liver fat at 6 months with growth hormone therapy, according to findings from a randomized controlled trial.

“Specifically, GH significantly decreased liver fat and alanine aminotransferase as well as visceral adipose tissue and high sensitivity C-reactive protein,” Laura Dichtel, MD, MHS, endocrinologist and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of steatotic liver disease research in the neuroendocrine unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio. Read the full story in Healio.

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25 minutes of walking per day may help older hospitalized adults maintain function

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By Andrew Rhoades

Only 25 minutes of slow walking each day could be enough to mitigate the negative effects of bed rest among older hospitalized patients, a recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found.

According to Daniel Gallardo-Gómez, a PhD student in health sciences at the University of York, and colleagues, prior research has found “that older adults spend only 45 minutes per day out of their hospital bed, less than 5% of a 24-hour period.” Read the full story in Healio.

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Survival “Excellent” for Patients With Infection Before Liver Transplant

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“The risk of poor outcomes because of the persistence/recurrence of infections after liver transplant (LT) is a main barrier in the decision to proceed or not to LT in patients with cirrhosis and infections,” Salvatore Piano, MD, PhD, and colleagues wrote. “In fact, infections increase morbidity and mortality in the early post-transplant period, and use of immunosuppression may limit the ability of the host to counteract the pathogens. For these reasons, international guidelines state that active infections should be adequately treated before LT. However, the optimal timing of LT in patients surviving an episode of infection as well as their prioritization on LT waiting list is still to be established.” Read the full article in Physician’s Weekly.

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To save a young mom, Seattle transplant doctors became pioneers

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By Elise Takahama

It had been less than two weeks since giving birth when a coronary artery in Adriana Rodriguez’s heart burst.

The sudden tear interrupted an early December breakfast with her mother in Bellingham, and within minutes her chest started tightening. A wave of nausea weakened her body. She wanted to curl up into a ball. Read the full story in The Seattle Times.

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A fellow teacher becomes a lifesaving donor in Clarkston

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Successful transplant changes lives of two families

By Matthew Fahr

It is not often that responding to an email leads to saving someone’s life, but that is what happened to Clarkston school district teacher Jessica Sorensen.

She teaches grades three, four, and five in Clarkston’s virtual program and Dennis Klenow teaches third grade at Independence Elementary; the two have been friends for over 20 years. They knew each other’s kids and had them in their classrooms and taught classes side by side for over a decade. Read the full story in The Oakland Press.

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