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‘Quite an adventure’: Cartoonist helps lifelong friend through heart transplant

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Over three months, Steve Ulrich and Leigh Rubin drew strength and inspiration from each other. Rubin also drew cartoons for his nationally syndicated comic.

By Katherine Cook
PORTLAND, Oregon — A Hood River man has a new heart and deepened appreciation for a lifelong friend.

Steve Ulrich, 66, received a heart transplant in December at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Southwest Portland. But before getting on a transplant waiting list, doctors told Ulrich he would need someone to commit to being a temporary, in-house caregiver to him for three months. Ulrich reached out to his close friend, Leigh Rubin. Read or watch the story from KGW8.

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Maintaining heart function in donors declared ‘dead by circulatory criteria’ could improve access to heart transplantation

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More donated hearts could be suitable for transplantation if they are kept functioning within the body for a short time following the death of the donor, new research has concluded.

The organs are kept functioning by restarting local circulation to the heart, lungs and abdominal organs – but, crucially, not to the brain – of patients whose hearts have stopped beating for five minutes or longer and have been declared dead by circulatory criteria (donation after circulatory death, or DCD). Read more in EurekAlert!

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What drives transplant waitlisting disparities?

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For transplant patients, psychosocial evaluations, like other measures in the transplant process, can lead to people of color facing worse outcomes.

All potential transplant candidates undergo medical and psychosocial evaluations, which are crucial in determining whether they can get a transplant. The latter are meant to ensure that a patient has adequate social support and is committed to following the recommendations of their medical team. Psychosocial evaluations also consider a patient’s history of misusing alcohol or other substances, as well as factors related to their mental health. Read more in Penn Today.

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What the First Lung Delivered by Drone Means for Transplant Science

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Scientists document a groundbreaking flight to deliver a lung for transplant

As organ transplant science advances, its biggest hurdles are increasingly logistical ones—such as securing a flight and navigating through traffic fast enough to deliver an organ before it deteriorates.

Enter the drone, for which researchers recently documented a milestone test in Science Robotics. After hundreds of practice flights, their drone carried a human donor lung on a five-minute journey from the roof of Toronto Western Hospital to Toronto General Hospital for a successful transplant. The trip can take 25 minutes by road.
Read more in Scientific American.

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Diagnosis, Death in Pulmonary Fibrosis Seen Earlier in Black Patients

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— Disparities in age pervasive, say researchers

Black patients with pulmonary fibrosis (PF) consistently experienced poor outcomes associated with their disease at earlier ages than other groups, including hospitalization and death, according to U.S. registry data spanning nearly two decades.

In an analysis from the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Registry (PFFR) from 2003 to 2021, a PF diagnosis in Black individuals occurred about 10 years earlier, on average, before their white and Hispanic counterparts (P<0.001), reported Ayodeji Adegunsoye, MD, MS, of the University of Chicago Department of Medicine, and colleagues.
Read the full story in MedPage Today.

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How a teenager’s stomach ache turned into a heart transplant at Rady Children’s

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A Culver City teen who has dreams of being an NBA star complained of a stomach ache, two weeks later he got a heart transplant.

SAN DIEGO — A teenage boy with big NBA dreams is recovering from a life-threatening scare.

14-year-old Mario Luna III says a stomachache turned into needing a heart transplant.

The teen says he’s loves playing basketball with friends and anyone who enjoys getting to play some ball. “Just the fun and aggression because it gets good when it’s starting to have fun,” said Luna.
Read or watch the full story on CBS News 8 San Diego.

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Gaining momentum for liver care: Arun Sanyal reflects on the VCU liver institute’s first year

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One year has passed since the establishment of the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health at VCU. Sanyal discusses the institute’s biggest strides in its first year and next steps on the path to advancing liver health.

By Olivia Trani

In December 2021, Virginia Commonwealth University shared its plan to create an institute for liver disease and metabolic health, building on the university’s legacy of championing liver health through translational research, education and clinical care. Just two months following the announcement, in February 2022, the institute received a historic $104 million gift, the largest publicly shared donation for liver research in U.S. history, from R. Todd Stravitz, M.D., and his family’s Barbara Brunckhorst Foundation. Read the full story from VCU News.

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Prolonged Mechanical Ventilation After Lung Transplantation to Predict and Establish Risk Model

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The following is the summary of “Establishment of a risk prediction model for prolonged mechanical ventilation after lung transplantation: a retrospective cohort study” published in the January 2023 issue of Pulmonary medicine by Gao, et al.

Mortality rates are higher for patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV), often defined as mechanical ventilation for more than 72 hours following lung transplantation with or without tracheostomy. 
Read more in Physician’s Weekly.

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