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With limited funding, researchers move forward on bioartificial kidneys, xenotransplants

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By Mark E. Neumann

In a recent editorial, Beatrice Concepcion, MD, wrote despite some challenges, transplantation “remains the treatment of choice for most patients with advanced kidney disease,” offering a better quality of life compared with dialysis.

Administrators of the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease Program see kidney transplants as more cost effective compared with dialysis and encourage the option through demonstrations that are part of the Advancing American Kidney Health initiative.
Read the full article in Healio.

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Clinical trial finds live vaccinations safe for liver, kidney transplant recipients

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by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Live vaccinations provided to children who previously received liver or kidney transplants were found to be safe and prompted an immune response to guard against several life-threatening conditions, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open.

The study, based on data from 18 organ transplant centers, was co-authored by Lara Danziger-Isakov, MD, MPH, interim director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s, and Amy Feldman, MD, MSCS, medical director of the Liver Transplant Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Read the full article in Medical Xpress.

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Islet transplantation may reduce failure risk, boost life expectancy in patients with type 1 diabetes

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By Shawn M. Carter

Pancreatic islet transplantation may reduce transplant failure risk and boost long-term survival vs. insulin alone in kidney transplant recipients with type 1 diabetes, new data show.

“Although islet transplantation has previously been shown to improve glycemic control compared with conventional insulin therapy, little was known about its long-term impact until now,” lead researcher Mehdi Maanaoui, MD, a nephrologist at the Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Lille, in France, said in a press release. Read more in Healio.

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I Would Have Died Without A Transplant. Here’s My Story Documenting The Journey.

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“I can’t articulate what it was like to lose my mother like that, after being diagnosed with the same disease. I just know the fear of meeting that same fate was something I carried since that hot July day.”

By Alison Conklin

When I was 13 years old, I passed out in the middle of a competitive game of floor hockey in gym class. A trip to the hospital later, I’d been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that often causes thickening of the heart.

Five months after that diagnosis, my mother and I were in the kitchen together. We’d been chatting as she cooked, but suddenly she said she didn’t feel well. I watched as she collapsed to the floor. Read the full story in the HuffPost.

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Monkey kept alive for 2 years with pig kidney offers hope for humans awaiting transplants

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By Karen Weintraub

A Massachusetts-based company announced Wednesday that it has kept a monkey alive for two years with a pig kidney, the longest an animal has survived with an organ from a different animal. The work marks another substantial step toward solving the human organ shortage by using animals as donors.

The pig donor is born with 69 gene edits, by far the largest number used in an experiment of this kind, performed to try to reduce the risk of rejection, improve survival and eliminate any chance of a pig virus passing to the organ’s new host. Read the article in USA Today.

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‘She made a difference’: Ohio heart transplant recipient meets donor’s family

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By Katie Shatsby

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio (WDTN) — An Ohio woman who received a heart transplant got the chance to meet the father of her donor in an emotional gathering.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, Katherine Schroeder-Herrmann was born with a rare congenital heart disease, requiring more than 20 heart procedures before the age of 22. Check out the full story in WDTN News 2.

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Extra 3,000 steps per day can lower blood pressure for older, sedentary adults

Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash
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By Regina Schaffer

Older adults with hypertension who did not meet weekly physical activity goals had significant drops in systolic and diastolic BP after adding 3,000 steps per day to their usual routines, data from a pilot study show.

“Merely increasing steps by 3,000 per day from a baseline of 4,000 to a total of 7,000 steps per day reduced systolic BP by 7 mm Hg and diastolic BP by 4 mm Hg among older adults with high BP,” Linda Pescatello, PhD, distinguished professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, told Healio. Read the full article in Healio.

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Complex pregnancies after heart transplant underscore need for patient counseling

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By Regina Schaffer

Data show pregnancy after heart transplant brings significant risks for all-cause and CV maternal morbidity as well as higher risks for cesarean delivery and hospital readmission within 1 year, highlighting the need for patient counseling.

Female patients aged 18 to 49 comprised approximately 8% of heart transplant recipients in 2021, Amanda Craig, MD, assistant professor in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at Duke University Hospital, and colleagues wrote in JACC: Heart Failure. Read more in Healio.

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