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Together with Missouri S&T, Saint Louis University Researchers Use Artificial Intelligence to Improve Kidney Transplant Process

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ST. LOUIS, MO (11/18/2022) — With a new grant that brings together engineering expertise from Missouri S&T and medical expertise from Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine, researchers are investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) can support matchmaking between donated kidneys and transplant centers to help more patients in need. 

Thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead site Missouri S&T, experts in AI and organ transplantation will work to ensure that more kidneys are able to be used by patients who urgently need them. Read more from Saint Louis University.

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‘He Saved My Life’: Honoring a Pioneer Transplant Surgeon for 35 Years of Saving Lives

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Jenny Tice, 34, makes sure to live each day to its fullest. She is a Bay Area native, works in finance in San Francisco, lives an active lifestyle, and volunteers. However, these milestones wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Carlos Esquivel, MD, chief of the Division of Transplantation at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. He saved her life, twice.

“When I was 8 months old, I turned jaundiced and wasn’t gaining weight,” she says. “That’s when they found out that there was something wrong.” Read more from Stanford Medicine.

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Social Determinants of Health, Race Impact Outcomes in Pediatric Heart Transplants

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Social determinants of health independently impact post-heart transplant outcomes among Black children.

Social determinants of health (SDOH) independently impact post-heart transplant outcomes among Black children, but not White children, according to the results of a study presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2022, held from November 5th through 7th, in Chicago, Illinois. Read more from Infectious Disease Advisor.

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Management of allograft loss requires teamwork, patient involvement

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Tarek Alhamad, MD, has witnessed the grief that patients with a kidney transplant experience when they are facing loss of an allograft.

“It is definitely one of the hardest discussions that we could have as transplant nephrologists with the transplant recipient,” Alhamad, associate professor of medicine and medical director of the kidney transplant program in the division of nephrology at the Washington School of Medicine at St. Louis, told Healio/Nephrology News & Issues. “Going back to dialysis is something that would change their life completely with less quality of life and major dependence on a machine to continue to survive.”
Read the full article in Healio.

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Three-year monitoring report available for changes to adult heart allocation

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A new data report contains key measures of adult heart allocation based on policy changes implemented in October 2018.

The report notes several important trends since implementation, including:

  • Policy changes were successful in creating medical urgency statuses that prioritize candidates according to their risk of death while waiting for a transplant.

    Read the full article from UNOS.
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Home dialysis improves quality of life prior to dialysis dependence, many do not choose it

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ORLANDO — Patients with chronic kidney disease who choose home dialysis have improved health-related quality of life prior to dialysis dependence compared with patients on other modalities, according to a presenter at ASN Kidney Week.

However, less than half of patients in the study chose home dialysis as their treatment modality. Read more in Healio.

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FDA approves teplizumab to delay type 1 diabetes onset

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The FDA has approved teplizumab to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes for both adults and children aged 8 years and older with stage 2 type 1 diabetes, according to an agency press release.

Tzield (teplizumab-mzwv, Provention Bio) injection is a humanized anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody designed to delay the development of type 1 diabetes in high-risk adults and children. “Tzield may deactivate the immune cells that attack insulin-producing cells, while increasing theproportion of cells that help moderate the immune response,” according to the release. Read more in Healio.

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COVID Long-Haulers in Rural America Need More Support

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— From a larger disease burden to fewer resources, these communities are struggling

Today, as with every third Thursday of November, the U.S. is celebrating National Rural Health Day, honoring the commitment of the health providers who steward the health of the one in five Americans who live in rural communities. At the same time, this occasion should remind us that over the past nearly 3 years, these hard-working professionals have been caring for rural communities in increasingly diminished health. Once a haven from cities devastated in the first months of the pandemic, rural areas have outpaced urban areas in COVID-19 mortality rates. And as the earlier surges of the pandemic recede, a new concern is emerging: a mismatch between the burden of long COVID in rural communities and the resources available to address this complex public health challenge. Read the full article in MedPage Today.

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Poll: Nearly 40% of US residents deal with declining mood in winter

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According to a recently released survey, 38% of Americans revealed their overall mood declines in the winter but added that traditions related to the upcoming holidays impacts their mood positively.

Results of the latest Healthy Minds Poll from the American Psychiatric Association, which was conducted online by Morning Consult from Oct. 19-21 among 2,211 U.S. adults, found that 24% of Americans report that they generally feel depressed in the winter.
Read the full story in Healio.

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