By Andrew Rhoades
The AMA and 118 other leading medical societies recently announced that they have united in support of CMS’ prior authorization reform proposal.
The proposal would require certain payers to implement an electronic prior authorization process by 2026, while also needing to shorten the time frame in which they send responses. Read the full article in Healio.
Terry Giang and Aaron Ly have been married for 15 years. More than a year ago, Terry found out she had stage 5 kidney failure – and she thought she would be on dialysis for the rest of her life. But it turned out her husband was a perfect match for a transplant. Watch their story on CBS Chicago here.
Stratifying sarcoidosis by PH doesn’t fully show how it confers higher mortality risk
By Marisa Wexler, MS
The Lung Allocation Score (LAS) system, which is used to prioritize patients awaiting lung transplant, may not accurately reflect disease severity risks for people with pulmonary sarcoidosis, a new study reports.
Results showed that several factors accounted for in the LAS remain significant predictors of mortality for patients on the transplant wait list. This “suggests that the LAS system could be further optimized to lessen the disparity in candidate waitlist mortality,” the researchers wrote in the study, “Lung Transplantation Waitlist Mortality Among Sarcoidosis Patients by Lung Allocation Score Grouping,” which was published in Transplantation Proceedings. Read the full article in Sarcoidosis News.
Undergoing any surgery puts you at greater risk for infection. But with kidney transplants, you are often at even higher risk of infection from a range of viruses and bacteria, known as pathogens, because the medications you take afterward affect your immune system.
“Medications suppress your immune system so you will not reject the new kidney,” says Nikhil Agrawal, MD, a nephrologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “This makes it harder for your body to fight off a viral or bacterial infection.”
Read the full story on CareDx.com.
Monica Karas • Isabel Bernal • Oscar Diaz • Ola Alshammari • David Baggett • Thomas Bronk • Siam Chawdhury • Adi Eylon • Evelyn Garcia • Kyiana Haughton • Breanne Kothe • Andrew M. Joseph • Robin J. Jacobs
SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is a highly infectious virus that quickly became and continues to be a public health emergency, given the severe international implications. Immunocompromised patients, such as those undergoing kidney transplantation, are at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 and require hospitalization for more aggressive treatment to ensure survival. COVID-19 has been infecting kidney transplant recipients (KTRs), affecting their treatment protocols, and threatening their survival.
Read the complete abstract on Cureus.com.
By Erik Swain
NEW ORLEANS — Most patients at high or very high CV risk do not achieve guideline-recommended LDL goals, according to data from the Family Heart Database presented at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session.
“We know that individuals living with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) are too often undiagnosed and undertreated, and our goal is to change this,” Mary P. McGowan, MD, FNLA, assistant professor of medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, lipid researcher at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and chief medical officer at The Family Heart Foundation in Pasadena, California, told Healio.
Read the full article on Healio.com.
By Dr. Kenneth Brayman
How does a living kidney donation work, and who is eligible to be a donor?
The first successful kidney transplant in humans was accomplished in 1954, and the transplant was from a living donor. Advances in immunosuppression (drugs that prevent rejection of donated organs) were achieved in the 1980s and 1990s, and the field of organ transplantation has grown remarkably over the past 40 years. Read more in The Daily Progress.
The following is the summary of “National outcomes of bridge to multiorgan cardiac transplantation using mechanical circulatory support” published in the January 2023 issue of Thoracic and cardiovascular surgery by Melehy, et al.
Read the article by Physician’s Weekly.
Dr. Ahmad Anouti advocates for organ donations as he trains to become a transplant hepatologist
DALLAS – Feb. 22, 2023 – As a child in Beirut, Ahmad Anouti, M.D., endured dozens of medical procedures, hundreds of medications, and numerous setbacks before a liver transplant at age 16 saved his life.
Today, Dr. Anouti is a postdoctoral research fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center specializing in hepatology, which is the study of the liver. He’s also an advocate for organ transplantation and strives to raise awareness of UT Southwestern and the work being done by its Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases. Read more from UT Southwestern Medical Center.
By Dr. Priyom Bose, PhD
Around 10% of the global population is affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD). The risk of CKD progressing into end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is exceptionally high, which requires dialysis or kidney transplantation. At present, there is no effective treatment for CKD is available. Hence, there is an urgent need to uncover the underlying pathological mechanisms of CKD to help formulate effective treatment strategies to prevent and cure the disease. A recent Nature Communications study suggested that DNA-PKcs could be a potential target for treating CKD. Read more in News Medical Life Sciences.