You just found out you need an organ transplant. Whether it’s a heart, kidney, liver or lung, there are some key fundamentals to keep in mind as you navigate your transplant journey. Who better to share advice than those who have been through it?
Get the full story on CareDx.com.
Tufts Medical Center will relaunch its liver transplant program in 2023 through its newly established Abdominal Transplant Institute. The institute, which will be led by clinical co-directors Dr. Fred Gordon and Dr. Martin Hertl, aims to build an effective and patient-focused liver transplant program. Read more in The Tufts Daily.
By Maureen McBride, Ph.D., Interim UNOS CEO
This morning, I delivered remarks before the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Board of Directors in St. Louis during our semi-annual meeting. In them, I outlined my vision for community-wide efforts in the days, weeks, and months to come. I discussed critical issues facing the national system and how we can move forward together, acknowledging where we must improve, challenges we must address, and opportunities we must identify to best serve patients.
To read her complete remarks, read the blog from UNOS.
Hospitalizations for influenza are the highest they have been at this time of year since 2010, the CDC reported Friday.
There have been at least 8.7 million illnesses, 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths from influenza so far this season in the United States, according to the CDC, with hospitalizations doubling over the course of a week to 19,593 patients in the week ending Nov. 26. Read more in Healio.
After months in intensive care, Cesar Franco became the first person in Britain to have the operation because of the virus
“When I woke up I was confused. I remembered the doctors in St George’s hospital deciding to intubate me. But when I woke up from the intubation, I’d been transferred to another hospital, St Thomas’, and was on a machine that was keeping me alive. I wondered how things had gotten so bad and how I’d gone from being just ill to being, you know, very close to dying.”
Read the story in The Guardian here.
Women who adhered more to a plant-based Portfolio diet lowered their risk for developing type 2 diabetes, according to findings from the Women’s Health Initiative published in Diabetes Care.
“There are two main takeaways from this study,” Andrea Glenn, PhD, RD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto, told Healio. Read the full story in Healio.
Demand for transplantation has rapidly increased around the world during the past decade due to an increase in incidence of comorbidities leading to organ failure along with a rise in longevity in patient years.
This increase in demand has outpaced current graft survival and resulted in the need for re-transplantation – and for more organs. Consequently, there has been a major increase in the number of patients on transplant waitlists, as well as an increase in the number of patients dying waiting for a transplant. Read more in Healio.
An analysis by Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers shows steep increases in organ donations and transplantations take place during large motorcycle rallies.
The research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, shows that in the regions where the seven largest motorcycle rallies were held throughout the United States between 2005 and 2021, there were 21% more organ donors per day, on average, and 26% more transplant recipients per day, on average, during these events, compared with days just before and after the rallies, according to a press release. Read the full story in Healio.
A life-saving treatment, solid organ transplantation (SOT) has transformed the survival and quality of life of patients with end-organ dysfunction. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the practice of deceased and living donations worldwide by various resource shifting, including healthcare personnel and equipment such as ventilators and bed space. Read the full abstract in Nature.
Habitual coffee drinking may lower type 2 diabetes risk for women with a history of gestational diabetes, according to experts.
Previous research has examined connections between gestational diabetes and type 2 diabetes risk and, separately, shown that moderate coffee consumption can lower mortality risk. Read more in Healio.