In the first transplant of a genetically altered pig heart into a human in January, initial unexpected, prolonged ECG readings apparently did not affect the heart’s function, although the organ suddenly began to fail at day 50.
A study of these ECG changes, scheduled for presentation by Calvin Kagan, MD, and colleagues at the American Heart Association (AHA) 2022 Scientific Sessions, offers insight into this novel operation. Read more in Medscape.
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?
Below are words of advice transplant recipients shared on Facebook and Instagram from their experiences during their transplant journeys. Read more on CareDx.com.
Patients who receive hearts from COVID-19–positive donors will likely have short-term outcomes similar to those who receive hearts from COVID-19–negative donors, two retrospective analyses suggest.
COVID-19 rarely causes cardiac injury among young, healthy people; however, endothelial dysfunction and subcellular derangements might have longer-term consequences for a mild or subclinical infection in the transplanted organ, according to Clancy Mullan, MD, and colleagues at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
Read the full story in Medscape.
Having an organ transplant can feel like a new lease on life!
You find that you can suddenly do more of the things that you enjoy. However, new recipients are sometimes overwhelmed with all the requirements of post-transplant living.
Read the full story on CareDx.com.
There’s a reason the heart is considered a vital organ. It pumps blood throughout our bodies. That blood, in turn, carries a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients to sustain our other organs and takes unwanted waste products away. Keeping the heart healthy is of utmost importance given its many crucial roles. Read the full story from Yale Medicine.
A recent study to be presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2022* revealed unexpected changes in the electrical conduction system of the first genetically-modified porcine-to-human heart xenotransplant.
Xenotransplantation is the procedure of transplantation/implantation into a human of organs from non-human animal sources. Read more in News Medical Life Sciences.
Donor hearts from people with COVID-19 may be just as safe as those from people without, finds a short-term analysis of the first such transplants done in the United States.
“These findings suggest that we may be able to be more aggressive about accepting donors that are positive for COVID-19 when patients are in dire need of an organ for heart transplantation,” study researcher Samuel T. Kim said in a news release. Kim is a third-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Read more from American Heart Association News.
A new initiative using artificial intelligence and data analytics could help urban policymakers in New York City better target health resources toward the interventions that could have the greatest impact on heart health. Read more in Healio.
Black adults treated at advanced heart failure centers received potentially life-changing therapies, such as transplants and heart pumps, about half as often as white adults, possibly due to racial bias, a small National Institutes of Health-supported study has found. Read the full article from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
The incorporation of sleep as a CV health metric, as recently done with the American Heart Association’s updated Life’s Essential 8 risk calculator, may enhance CVD primordial and primary prevention efforts, data show.
“In our study, even a CV health score that includes only sleep duration, the most widely measured aspect of sleep health and the most feasible measure to obtain in a clinic or public health setting, predicted CVD incidence,” Nour Makarem, PhD, MS, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, said in a press release. Read more in Healio.