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‘Make Every Breath Count’

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A double lung transplant recipient’s gratitude knows no bounds

By Laura McFarland

‘Make Every Breath Count’

A double lung transplant recipient’s gratitude knows no bounds | Photos by Jay Paul

BY LAURA MCFARLAND

AUGUST 13, 2023Expand

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Lung transplant recipient Sam Kirton at the National Donor Memorial at the United Network for Organ Sharing

“Are you ready to take your first breath?”

When Samuel Kirton’s wife, Susan, leaned over his hospital bed and asked him that question, he admits he initially shook his head no.

Kirton, who had received a double lung transplant the day before, knew he was at a point of no return. Read the full story in Richmond Magazine.

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VCU Health surgeons launch robotic living liver procurement

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Innovative surgical procedure expected to expand pool of eligible living donors

Surgeons at VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center are using an innovative, less-invasive robotic liver procurement procedure to expand the pool of eligible living liver donors. As the number of people registered and waiting for a liver nears 11,000, this represents a critical breakthrough in matching patients needing an organ transplant with healthy livers.

Hume-Lee Transplant Center is the nation’s only center actively offering robotic hepatectomies – the surgical removal of portions of living donors’ livers – after becoming the third U.S. center to successfully perform this innovative surgery. Read the complete article from VCU Health.

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U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs Partners with Top Kidney Advocates

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AAKP and Veterans Health Administration Align  to Improve Veteran Lives

By American Association of Kidney Patients

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP), the largest and oldest independent kidney patient organization in the nation, announced their new partnership with the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The formal collaboration aims to improve health outcomes and enhance the overall quality of life for Veterans with kidney diseases and is facilitated under the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) National Center for Healthcare Advancement and Partnerships (HAP).  AAKP has extensive Veteran and Veteran family representation among its Board of Directors, National Patient Ambassadors, and grassroots membership.

AAKP is a strong advocate for greater patient care choice, patient-centered medicine, and accelerated innovations in kidney disease prevention, diagnostics, and treatments – including expanded access to kidney transplantation and new artificial implantable and wearable organs. Read the complete press release from AAKP.

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How machine learning could aid compatibility in kidney transplantation

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Through the PURM internship program, undergraduate students are further researching an algorithm developed to group kidney donor-recipient pairs into low-risk and high-risk groups for graft survival.

By Erica Moser

The United States saw a record 25,487 kidney transplants in 2021, according to the latest annual data report from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Five years after transplantation, successful organ function—called graft survival—of kidneys from deceased donors was 81% among patients ages 18 to 34 and 68% among people older than 65.
Read the full article in Penn Today.

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Fixed-ratio spirometry misses COPD diagnoses in African American patients

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By Isabella Hornick

A fixed-ratio criteria of FEV1/FVC less than 0.7 for COPD resulted in fewer diagnoses in African American vs. non-Hispanic white individuals, according to results published inJournal of General Internal Medicine.

“Relying only on spirometry for diagnosing COPD does not do justice to the known manifestations of the disease,” Elizabeth A. Regan, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at National Jewish Health, told Healio. Read the full article in Healio.

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1st ‘domino’ transplant performed in babies saves 2 girls born with heart defects

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When the Skaats family learned baby Mia needed a new heart they felt devastated. But Mia helped another family in domino heart transplant, a first in babies.

By Meghan Holohan

When Mia Skaats was only 10 days old, she began breathing rapidly, and her mom, Nicole Skaats, immediately knew something was wrong. Doctors eventually determined the newborn had cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart struggles to bump blood to the rest of the body, and she was in heart failure.

Mia needed a heart transplant, so when one became available, the Skaats family felt overjoyed their daughter, born in September 2022, would have a new chance at life. Check out the full story from NBC’s Today.

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CDC: Dialysis Patients Carry Heavier COVID Burden

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— Vaccination reduced some of the excess risk, agency says

By Michele Sullivan

Patients on maintenance dialysis had somewhat higher rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections and related deaths than seen in the general U.S. population, although immunization mitigated some of the excess risk, the CDC reported.

From June 30, 2021, to Sept. 27, 2022, the overall infection rate per 10,000 patient-weeks was 30.47 among maintenance dialysis patients, with a range from 20.13-46.45 across the different waves of variants compared with 17.13-43.62 per 10,000 population-weeks in the general population. Read the full article in MedPage Today.

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How machine learning could aid compatibility in kidney transplantation

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By Erica Moser

The United States saw a record 25,487 kidney transplants in 2021, according to the latest annual data report from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Five years after transplantation, successful organ function—called graft survival—of kidneys from deceased donors was 81% among patients ages 18 to 34 and 68% among people older than 65.

Malek Kamoun of the Perelman School of Medicine and Ryan Urbanowicz of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center are developing machine learning strategies to improve kidney matching and decrease the risk of graft failure—with help from Penn students. Read the full article in Medical Xpress.

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Study Measures Impact of Pausing Organ Transplants in Pandemic

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By Brittany Magelssen

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted organ transplants in unprecedented ways. Many transplant centers considered slowing down and even pausing all transplants, mostly due to the potential risk of COVID-19 to organ donors, transplant recipients and care providers.

In a study published in the May 2023 special issue of Production and Operations Management on managing pandemics, two operations management researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas analyzed the impact of pausing transplants on patient outcomes.
Read the complete article from The University of Texas at Dallas.

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Kidney doctors push to protect patients by including dialysis machines in emergency stockpile

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By Carrie Arnold

Ariel Brigham was drowning. Hurricane Harvey had dumped over 50 inches of rain across Houston and coastal Texas, leaving the then-26-year-old Texan stranded in her flooded apartment.

But what was killing Brigham wasn’t water from the hurricane. It was the excess fluid and toxins building up in her own body. Read the full story in STAT.

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