MILWAUKEE – Glenn Stuckman of Plymouth celebrated a special anniversary Thursday – 25 years since he had a heart transplant.
Thursday, Stuckman went back to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center where he had the procedure and met with Dr. John Crouch, the cardiothoracic surgeon who saved his life.
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Over the past 2 decades, the rate of heart transplantation among patients with pretransplant malignancy (PTM) has increased dramatically. Although heart transplant recipients with a prior malignancy may be at an increased risk for early mortality, particularly those with a hematologic cancer, death rates after the first posttransplant year are comparable between patients with and without PTM. Results of an analysis of this patient population were published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.
A contemporary retrospective analysis of adults in the United Network for Organ Sharing registry was conducted among patients with PTM who had received heart transplantation between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2020. Read more.
As of February 28, 2022, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused over 5.95 million deaths worldwide, with especially high rates of mortality reported among the elderly, frail, and immunocompromised.
Kidney transplant recipients are among the most at-risk individuals of COVID-19 due to the need for long-term immunosuppressive medication to avoid rejection. Their response to vaccination is also poor, and researchers continue to examine methods to achieve a better vaccine response in this population. Read more.
t was 4 a.m. on a humid night in St. Catharines, Ontario, and Elizabeth Ostrander couldn’t breathe. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, complicated by pneumonia, was suffocating her, doctors told her that day in 2016. If she hadn’t gotten to the hospital when she did, she would have died, Ostrander remembers them saying. She was in her early 50s.
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The next stage of the THINKER project — THINKER-NEXT — is aiming to settle any lingering concerns that patients and centers might have about using kidneys from hepatitis C (HCV)-infected donors and transplanting them into HCV-negative recipients in need of a kidney transplant.
Armed with an $8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia will evaluate the long-term risks and benefits of transplanting kidneys from HCV-positive donors into HCV-negative recipients and compare outcomes with those attained following transplantation of HCV-negative kidneys into HCV-negative recipients. Read more.
As the world continues to battle with a staggering pandemic that understandably has captured nearly every aspect of medical news, millions of people fight battles as before with major illnesses like cancer and heart disease. Among the many Americans currently suffering from potentially fatal medical conditions are those waiting for kidney, liver, or other organ transplants.
My dad Dick and aunt (and godmother) Deb are two of them. My family suffers from Polycystic Kidney Disease or PKD, a genetic disorder that reduces kidney function. Nearly half of those with PKD have kidney failure by age 60, and my father and aunt are in end-stage renal failure now. They are on the transplant list awaiting new kidneys. Read more.
Having an organ transplant can be lifesaving, and quality of life building. For most individuals in need of transplant, their journey begins with getting on the waitlist. It’s a process that may seem daunting, but knowing what to expect may alleviate some of the anxiety associated with this step. Read more.
UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus (UCH) has become the nation’s fourth medical center – and the first west of the Mississippi – to perform a kidney transplant on a high-BMI patient using a surgical robot.
The surgery, performed by University of Colorado School of Medicine transplant surgeon Dr. Thomas Pshak on Nov. 17, was the culmination of two years of preparation, and it bodes well for those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get kidney transplants at all.
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CareDx Inc. announced its non-invasive organ transplant surveillance solutions were used to monitor postoperative graft health in the first successful heart xenotransplantation.
According to the press release, surgeons from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) are using versions of two Care-Dx surveillance solutions to monitor the genetically modified pig heart they transplanted into a patient on Jan. 7, 2022. Read more.
Adults with type 2 diabetes and a higher BMI may have an increased risk for diabetic kidney disease, according to study findings published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
In findings from a generalized summary Mendelian randomization using 56 BMI-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms instrument variables, increasing BMI was linked to an increased risk for diabetic nephropathy and a lower estimated glomerular filtration rate, with the effects most pronounced among women. Read more.