Walking For Kidney Transplants
Organ procurement and transplant board votes to establish race-neutral eGFR equation
The Organ Procurement and Transplant Network Board of Directors has unanimously voted to remove the race coefficient from eGFR equations.
Several organizations have called for the removal of the race coefficient because it puts Black patients on the transplant list at a disadvantage. Following the vote by its board, the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) will be implementing a race-neutral eGFR equation within 30 days. Read the full story in Healio.
CV complications of COVID-19 vary widely; patients with HF at high risk
PHILADELPHIA — The CV complications of COVID-19 are wide-ranging, and the consequences can be especially serious in patients with HF, a speaker said at the Heart in Diabetes CME conference.
The presentation by Lee R. Goldberg, MD, MPH, FACC, section chief of advanced cardiac failure and heart transplant, vice chair for medicine informatics and professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, covered a number of topics related to cardiac complications of COVID-19. Read the full article in Healio.
For some desperate COVID patients, lung transplants are the best chance at survival
Dennis Franklin thought he had come down with a cold when he was vacationing with his wife in Holden, Mo., in June 2021. Too tired to do anything, he cut the trip short.
Once home in St. Charles, Mo., he went to an urgent care center and was diagnosed with COVID-19 and pneumonia. Two days later, on his wedding anniversary, he didn’t wake up. When his wife, Julia, tried to rouse him, she realized he was barely breathing. She frantically called 911 and an ambulance rushed him to the local hospital. Read the full story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.
Study finds racial and ethnic disparities in cardiac rehabilitation participation regardless of income
Participation in cardiac rehabilitation is low among Asian, Black and Hispanic adults compared to white adults, with significant disparities by race/ethnicity regardless of income, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.
Cardiac rehabilitation programs combine physical activity with counseling about healthy living and stress reduction to help improve recovery after a major cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack, heart failure, heart surgery or angioplasty.
Read more in News Medical Life Sciences.
A new storage technique could vastly expand the number of livers available for transplant
It allows donor livers to be held for days—significantly longer than the standard now–and even treated if they are damaged.
A patient who received a donated liver that had been stored for three days in a new type of machine that mimics the human body is healthy one year on from surgery, according to a study in Nature Biotechnology. The technology could significantly increase the number of livers suitable for transplant, the authors claim, both by enabling donor livers to be preserved for longer than the current standard and by making it possible to repair organs that are available but too damaged to transplant as is.
Read more in MIT Technology Review.
The 10 most common reasons for hospitalization after a heart transplant
While a vast majority of heart transplants (HT) in the United States are successful, unplanned hospitalizations are still incredibly common. In fact, one 2018 analysis found that 62% of heart transplant patients are hospitalized within 60 days of the procedure.
What leads to these unplanned hospitalizations? A team of specialists aimed to find out, sharing its findings in Current Problems in Cardiology.[1]
Read more in Cardiovascular Business.
‘I Can’t Wait to Swim!’ | How a Kidney Transplant Changed the Possibilities for 4-Year-Old Stella
“She has so much more energy and is eating so much more. She is also moving and walking more than she ever did.”
Four-year-old Stella Allison has always loved telling jokes and playing dress up.
With energy that is contagious and a smile that lights up a room, her mom Kyley Barthlow says Stella has grown into a high-spirited and chatty child – but was born a real fighter.
Read the full story from Seattle Children’s.
OPTN Board of Directors expected to require transplant hospitals to use race-neutral calculations in assessing patients
Key points:
-OPTN Board to take up recommendation June 27
-If approved, implementation may occur within 30 days
-Transplant programs and labs should be aware of the pending action and consider options for transition
At its next in-person meeting, the Board of Directors of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) will consider a proposal to require transplant hospitals to use race-neutral calculations when estimating a patient’s glomerular filtration rates (GFR). This proposed change aims to reduce health disparities and address inequities for Black kidney candidates by more accurately estimating their GFR values. The board will next meet in Richmond, Va., June 26-27, 2022. Read more from UNOS.
Faculty Scientists and Clinicians Publish Findings of World’s First Successful Transplant of Genetically Modified Pig Heart into Human Patient
Patient Survived for Two Months After First-of-Its-Kind Transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center
Newswise — BALTIMORE, June 22, 2022 – Six months ago, University of Maryland School of Medicine surgeon-scientists successfully implanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57 year-old patient with terminal heart disease in a first-of-its-kind surgery. It was considered an early success because the patient lived for two months with a strong functioning heart showing no obvious signs of rejection, according to a new paper published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more in News Wise.