Having an organ transplant shouldn’t keep anyone from traveling but it does require some extra planning and precautions to ensure your health and safety. Whether on the waitlist or post-transplant, travel is often not only a necessity but also a great source of joy for many.
Whether by plane, train, or automobile, check out these simple tips for smooth travel ahead. Read the full story on CareDx.com.
CMS has released a proposed rule for the 2023 Physician Fee Schedule with some mix results for nephrologists, according to the Renal Physician Association.
“ … As usual, the news is mixed to positive for nephrology,” Robert Blaser, director of public policy for the RPA, wrote in an analysis for the association. “While the fee schedule conversion factor is projected for an approximate (and expected) 4.4% reduction, valuation for virtually all dialysis services (inpatient and outpatient, adult and pediatric, home and in-center, monthly and daily) either held steady or ticked up slightly,” he wrote.
Read more in Healio.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, around 8,096 liver transplants took place in 2020 alone, with 11,772 candidates awaiting transplantation at the end of 2020. Liver transplants traditionally come from deceased donors. Centers prioritize transplants and allocate these livers to individuals based on their level of sickness.
On the other hand, a living donor liver transplant is partial liver transplantation. It can be an alternative to waiting for a deceased donor until the liver disease becomes too severe to require a full organ transplant. Read more in Medical News Today.
The U.S. has had the same leading cause of death since 1921. Today, one person in America dies every 34 seconds from this disease. This disease doesn’t care about your demographics — men, women, and most racial and ethnic groups are all affected. The disease in question is none other than heart disease.
We’re surrounded by daily advertisements for methods of combating heart disease. Additionally, the U.S. spends around $229 billion annually in heart-disease related healthcare services, medicine, and lost productivity due to death. The good news? This disease is largely preventable. Read the full story in MedPage Today.
You were lucky enough to receive a kidney years ago, but now it is failing. Is it better to opt for another transplant or go on dialysis?
New research suggests a second transplant may be the better option. Read the full story in HealthDay.
Genetically engineered pig hearts were successfully transplanted into recently deceased humans as part of an effort to create a xenotransplantation protocol for patients with heart disease.
The team of surgeons who performed the investigational procedures observed no early signs of organ rejection over 72 hours. Nader Moazami, MD, surgical director of heart transplantation at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute who led the team, said it was “a milestone and a steppingstone in the right direction.” It was the top story in cardiology last week. Read the full story in Healio.
Among white women, pregnancies after donating a kidney pose similar complications to those experienced by the general population; although, a low increase in risk is observed.
Further, investigators observed similar fetal and neonatal risks among pregnancies before and after donation. Read more in Healio.
No veteran should die waiting for a kidney transplant. However, as of the July 4th weekend, there were 1,781veterans across the United States on a waiting list. Sharyn Kreitzer is on a mission to eradicate the wait.
Three years ago, Kreitzer founded the nonprofit Donor Outreach for Veterans, or DOVE. Her mission is to locate living kidney donors for higher risk patients.
Read the full story in MilitaryTimes.
ST. LOUIS — A rare genetic liver disease that afflicts 100,000 Americans has evaded treatment by scientists and doctors for decades.
Now, after 29 years of research, a St. Louis University scientist and his team are on the cusp of a solution. Read the full article in the St. Louis-Dispatch.
“These kidneys are going to last forever,” one researcher said.
Three children who have undergone kidney transplants in California will likely be spared from ever having to take anti-rejection medication, because of an innovative technique that eliminates the need for lifelong immunosuppression, ground-breaking new research suggests.
Scientists at Stanford Medicine detailed the cases Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. All three children have an extremely rare genetic disease called Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia, or SIOD, that often destroys a person’s ability to fight off infection and leads to kidney failure. In each case, a parent donated stem cells taken from bone marrow, as well as a kidney. Read the full story from NBC News.