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Are Lung Transplant Patients More Prone to Cancer?

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A lung transplant involves replacing a diseased lung with a healthy lung from a donor. Surgeons can swap out one or both lungs during this operation. Transplantation is an option for people with failing lungs due to a variety of health conditions. If a lung transplant is successful, it can offer many patients a longer, better quality of life.1

However, there are also serious risks to consider, including a higher chance of developing certain types of cancer after the transplantation. This risk is attributed to conventional risk factors, such as a history of smoking in both recipients and donors, and to immunosuppression after transplantation.2 Read the full article in Verywell Health.

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Immunosuppression Adherence in Pediatric Kidney Transplant

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Following solid-organ transplantation, the primary aim of care is preventing allosensitization. Despite potent immunosuppression, nonadherence often disrupts treatment, resulting in rejection. Among recipients of kidney transplant, the strongest predictors of allograft failure are nonadherence and subsequent antibody or T-cell-mediated rejection (AMR and TCMR, respectively). Read more in Nephrology Times.

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Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant Outcomes Improve With Diverse Gut Microbes, Immune Cells

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NEW YORK – A team from Weill Cornell Medical College, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and elsewhere has demonstrated that interactions between the gut microbial community and the immune system can influence an individual’s response to a bone marrow transplant to treat leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood conditions.

Past studies have suggested ties between microbial diversity and favorable allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT) outcomes, or transplants involving stem cells from healthy donors. For their new study, the researchers set out to characterize fecal microbiome features alongside immune cell features and clinical outcomes in allo-HCT recipients — work they presented in Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday.
Read more in GenomeWeb.

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International Heart Rhythm Societies Set Out Recommendations on Genetic Testing for Cardiac Diseases

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NEW YORK – Four international associations focusing on heart rhythm disturbances have published a consensus statement regarding how to best use genetics to test for inherited cardiac diseases.

The 61-page document was authored by representatives of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), a branch of the European Society of Cardiology; the Washington, D.C.-based Heart Rhythm Society; the Asia Pacific Heart Rhythm Society; and the Latin American Heart Rhythm Society. Read the complete story in GenomeWeb here.

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Study seeks to improve gender equity for liver transplantation waiting list

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Women who need a liver transplant are more likely to spend more time on a waiting list, become too sick for transplant or die compared to men. To improve equity, a recently published Vanderbilt-led study suggests a sex adjustment to criteria for MELD (model for end-stage liver disease), which determines allocation of transplanted livers.

The paper, “Proposing a Sex-Adjusted Sodium-Adjusted MELD Score for Liver Transplant Allocation” appears in JAMA Surgery. Read more in the VUMC Reporter.

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When Will We Know if COVID Is Seasonal?

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— Infection is likely headed toward seasonality, but it’s not there yet

COVID-19 may indeed become a seasonal illness with predictable patterns of infection — but it’s not there yet, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts say.

While the virus has had some element of seasonality since it first came into the world more than 2 years ago, other factors — including variant evolution, population immunity, and behavioral changes — have made seasonality less apparent. Read more in MedPage Today.

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Mom listens to her late son’s heartbeat through his organ donor recipient

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The heartwarming moment mother Maria Clark got to listen to her son’s heart two years after a fatal car crash was captured on video by the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.

Maria Clark lost her son, Nicholas Peters, in a fatal car accident nearly two years ago. He was 25. At the time, Clark knew immediately that she wanted to donate his organs. The Madisonville, Louisiana, resident said she also knew her son would have wanted the same. Unbeknown to her, the grateful donee who received her son’s heart lived less than three hours away from her. Jean Paul Marceaux, aged 14, received her son’s heart after spending a whole summer in the hospital fighting for his life. For the first time since the transplant took place, Clark had the opportunity to meet the young boy and listen to her son’s heart, Good Morning America reports. Read the full story from Upworthy.

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The Low-Sodium Diet for Heart Failure

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Tips to help you eat smart for your heart

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 6.2 million adults in this country are living with heart failure. This condition occurs when your heart doesn’t pump enough blood or oxygen to help other parts of your body.

While health conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease and obesity can increase your risk for heart failure, smoking, drinking heavily, not exercising and eating a diet heavy in saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol can as well. Read more from the Cleveland Clinic.

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