MILWAUKEE – Glenn Stuckman of Plymouth celebrated a special anniversary Thursday – 25 years since he had a heart transplant.
Thursday, Stuckman went back to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center where he had the procedure and met with Dr. John Crouch, the cardiothoracic surgeon who saved his life.
Get the full story here.
Over the past 2 decades, the rate of heart transplantation among patients with pretransplant malignancy (PTM) has increased dramatically. Although heart transplant recipients with a prior malignancy may be at an increased risk for early mortality, particularly those with a hematologic cancer, death rates after the first posttransplant year are comparable between patients with and without PTM. Results of an analysis of this patient population were published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.
A contemporary retrospective analysis of adults in the United Network for Organ Sharing registry was conducted among patients with PTM who had received heart transplantation between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2020. Read more.
CareDx Inc. announced its non-invasive organ transplant surveillance solutions were used to monitor postoperative graft health in the first successful heart xenotransplantation.
According to the press release, surgeons from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) are using versions of two Care-Dx surveillance solutions to monitor the genetically modified pig heart they transplanted into a patient on Jan. 7, 2022. Read more.
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced access to endomyocardial biopsy (EMBx) rejection surveillance in heart transplant (HT) recipients. This is the first Canadian study to assess the role for non-invasive rejection surveillance in personalizing titration of immunosuppression (IS) and patient satisfaction post-HT.
METHODS: In this mixed methods prospective cohort study, adult HT recipients more than six months from HT had their routine EMBx replaced by non-invasive rejection surveillance with gene expression profiling (GEP) and donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA). Demographics, outcomes of non-invasive surveillance score, hospital admissions, patient satisfaction, and health status on Medical Outcomes Study 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12) were collected and analyzed using t-tests and chi-squared tests. Thematic qualitative analysis was performed for open-ended responses. Read more.
In the early hours of January 7th, the cardiothoracic surgeon Bartley Griffith, unable to sleep, went to his kitchen to make coffee. It was about 2 a.m. His usual mug is tall, and he had to remove the stand from his Krups machine in order to fit it. “Next thing I realized, I had coffee all over the floor. I had forgotten to put the cup under,” Griffith told me. “You get a bit wiggly, a bit superstitious.” He asked himself, “Do you know what you’re about to do?” Griffith has forty years of surgical experience. But later that morning he was scheduled to perform a surgery that would be unusual even for him: the world’s first transplantation of a pig’s heart into a human. Read more.
Santana Renchie takes on life as if she knows—at the tender age of 2—that she’s lucky to be alive. She’s sassy, full of joy, and determined to not miss a single moment of fun.
“There’s nothing stopping her. She’s relentless. If she wants something, she just goes for it,” says her dad, Sebron. Read the full story.
A Maryland woman competed in a marathon after recovering from a heart transplant— and brought her surgeon along for the ride. She shared her remarkable road to recovery with News4.
“I’ve been a runner since as far as I can remember. My mom used to tell me that she used to catch me by grabbing my pigtails. It’s my happy place,” Jayde Kelly said.
But one day, it came to a sudden stop. Read the full story here.
As a heart transplant recipient, you’ll quickly find yourself being asked to take a laundry list of blood tests. While this can be inconvenient and frustrating, it’s also really important. Your doctor can’t tell what’s going on with your new heart by looking at you. Blood tests provide information on how well your heart is functioning and how your medications may be affecting your body. By reviewing the results, your physician may adjust medications, recommend changes to your diet or fluid intake, or recognize the need for additional examination.
But what are the specific tests and what is the purpose of each? With the help of Dr. Shelley Hall, Chief of Transplant Cardiology and Mechanical Support/Heart Failure at a large university medical center in the southern US, in this article we discuss:
– Complete blood count
– Comprehensive metabolic panel
– Infection testing
– Natriuretic peptide test
– Immunosuppressive drug levels
– Donor specific antibodies
– AlloMap® Heart
– AlloSure® Heart
Read more here.
“Use of temporary mechanical circulatory support (MCS) as a bridge to transplantation was a good strategy for many people following implementation of the 2018 national donor heart allocation policy, yet hemodynamic criteria may need to be modified to better identify the most urgent transplant candidates.
Within 14 days of status 2 listing, people with either a percutaneous endovascular MCS device or an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) received a heart transplant in 64.2% of cases, and only 1.9% died or were delisted for worsening clinical condition (a figure that rose to 3.1% at 30 days on the waitlist).”
Learn more here.
COVID-19 restrictions are easing. What does that mean for heart failure patients?
Although the coronavirus is still a major health threat, restrictions are easing across the nation. That leaves many people— including heart failure patients — wondering if it’s safe to go out in public and get back to a normal routine.
The most important thing to remember is that people with heart disease, including heart failure, are at risk of getting much sicker or even dying if they get COVID-19. So if you have a history of heart disease or have a risk factor for heart disease or stroke, stay informed and stay cautious.
Learn more here.