Getting a kidney transplant gives you a new lease on life. A successful transplant gives you increased strength, stamina and energy — but while you’re recovering from surgery, you may not quite feel that way yet.
If you’re about to undergo kidney transplant surgery, here’s what you need to know about recovery. Read more from the Cleveland Clinic.
(SACRAMENTO) UC Davis Health reached an institutional milestone in August, surpassing 5,000 kidney transplants performed since its first almost 37 years ago.
Established in 1985, the UC Davis Transplant Center performed 282 kidney transplants in 2021, making UC Davis Health one of the top 10 centers in the nation for total kidney transplants. Read more from UC Davis Health News.
For patients with diabetes and end-stage kidney disease, the only persistently successful treatment is simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplant (SPK). However, according to M. Ji and colleagues, SPK has a technical failure rate of 7% to 22%. Technical failure is defined as a graft loss within 3 months of transplantation.
The researchers conducted a study designed to quantify the impact of 3-month pancreas function on kidney graft failure and patient survival following SPK in patients with type 1 diabetes. Read more from Nephrology Times.
BEING DIAGNOSED WITH KIDNEY FAILURE comes with many challenges. Medications, dialysis, the physical and emotional exhaustion. It’s all the more difficult if you develop end-stage kidney disease and need a kidney transplant.
For these individuals, there are only three treatment options:
UCSF-Hennepin County Study Shows Race-Free Creatinine Formula Helps Equalize Access
Using equations to calculate kidney function that do not include race adjustments would result in Black patients gaining time on the transplant waitlist before their kidneys fail that matched similar durations for white patients, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco and Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
In their study, publishing in the journal CJASN on Sept. 19, 2022, the researchers compared the length of time from waitlist eligibility to kidney failure for Black and white patients. Read more from the University of California San Francisco.
Although progress has been made, undocumented immigrants with kidney failure are underserved and in desperate need of care, according to a presenter at Innovations in Dialysis: Expediting Advances Symposium.Lilia Cervantes
“U.S. citizens have access to kidney replacement therapy because of the 1972 Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease Entitlement program, but for undocumented immigrants care varies,” Lilia Cervantes, MD, director of immigrant health, associate professor from the department of medicine at University of Colorado and member of Nephrology News & Issues Editorial Advisory Board, said. Read more in Healio.
One of the most important responsibilities you will have after getting your kidney transplant is following a prescribed and complex medication regimen.
Taking immunosuppressant (anti-rejection) medications will be required for the rest of your life. Read the full article on CareDx.com.
Compared with the Kaplan-Meier estimator, researchers found multi-state models provided a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of the life course and graft risk of older kidney transplant recipients.
“As a result of excellent graft survival in older patients and, inevitably, relatively high mortality, most older kidney recipients can expect to die with a functioning graft. Also noteworthy is the fact that there is an increased rate of early graft failure in elderly patients, at least in part due to higher use of expanded criteria kidneys in this age group,” Thomas Vanhove, MD, PhD, from Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues wrote. Read more in Healio.
While Voices for Kidney Health advocates frequently hear about NKF legislative efforts around the Living Donor Protection Act, federal appropriations, and other bills, they may be less aware about the federal regulations and policies that directly affect the lives of people with kidney disease. These rules and regulations can have almost as big an impact on the lives of kidney patients as some of our major legislative initiatives.
For example, the End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Prospective Payment System and Quality Improvement Program govern much of the care that dialysis patients receive.
Read more from National Kidney Foundation.
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.