Part of the function of the kidney is to help you regulate blood pressure.
High blood pressure—known as hypertension—can be common both before and after a kidney or heart transplant.
Between 50 and 80% of adults—and 47 to 82% of kids—living with a transplanted kidney have high blood-pressure levels.1 Culprits that stimulate elevations in blood-pressure level include:
Read the full article, here.
We have been living in a COVID-19 world for close to a year now, and the pandemic has changed society’s routines and forced it to delay—or go without—many things.
As a transplant recipient, however, you know that you cannot delay—or go without—certain things, especially those related to your care.
Routine check-ups with your transplant team can help detect transplant complications.
Labs are also incredibly important for transplant recipients like yourself because they asses the ongoing health of your transplanted kidney or heart. If you are a kidney-transplant recipient, important regular labs that you may need include:
If you are a heart-transplant recipient, important regular labs that you may need include:
Read the full article, here.
Every buzzword has its beginning.
In early 2020, few had heard of “Social Distancing.” By March, however, “Social Distancing” had become part of the universal lexicon.
In the transplant community, it’s just a matter of time until “Liquid Biopsy” becomes the latest buzzword.
The liquid biopsy uses fragments from the blood to give information that is usually found from taking a solid biopsy. The science has been widely used in cancer diagnosis and management, replacing invasive sampling with a non-invasive blood test.
As cells undergo changes, injury, or natural death, their DNA fragments are released into the blood stream. These fragments are known as cell-free DNA (cfDNA),1 and they provide a continuous stream of information. In the case of cancer cells, a liquid biopsy is detecting the cfDNA coming from the tumor.
Read the full article, here.
Having an organ transplant can feel like a new lease on life!
You find that you can suddenly do more of the things that you enjoy. However, new recipients are sometimes overwhelmed with all the requirements of post-transplant living.
Protecting your new gift requires some discipline and consistency. As a new transplant recipient, you become keenly aware of things like:
To maintain the health of your transplanted organ, it is important that you take your immunosuppressant (anti-rejection) medications, but also at the same times each day.
Anti-rejection medications help to tame your body’s ability to attack and potentially damage your transplanted organ. To accomplish this, however, anti-rejection medications need to be taken:
Read the full article, here.
“This month’s episode focuses on how to adapt your culturally favorite foods into a kidney friendly diet. Registered Dietitian, Renee Fung, RD, CSR, LDN, discusses how she works with her patients to keep their favorite foods in the renal diet.”
Read the full recipe and watch the video by National Kidney Foundation of Illinois, here.
“Atlanta-based digital and virtual designer, Anthony Bright, just launched a virtual reality experience called “A Bright Future.” With this immersive project, Bright aims to find suitable transplant candidates after he was diagnosed with kidney disease back in November 2019. The multimedia effort also acts as a precedent for future recipients who are looking for potential donors.”
Read the full article, here.
“Among US adults with kidney failure, race and social determinants of health were associated with patients’ likelihood of receiving a kidney transplant. The findings come from an analysis that will appear in an upcoming issue of CJASN.
Blacks are more likely than whites to develop kidney failure, but they’re less likely to undergo kidney transplantation, the optimal treatment for kidney failure. Blacks also have disproportionately lower rates of kidney transplants from living donors, which offer superior patient and transplant survival rates compared with deceased-donor kidney transplants.”
Read the full article, here.
Download the full paper, here.
“More than 3,000 donated kidneys are discarded every year in the U.S., even as thousands of people die on kidney transplant waitlists. About a fifth of all donated kidneys — particularly those from people who are older, have metabolic or cardiovascular conditions, or have died — are deemed poor quality. Doctors and patients often refuse such kidneys rather than risk transplanting an organ that might not work.”
Read the full article, here.
“Transplantation experts led by Tatsuo Kawai, M.D., Ph.D., Surgical Director of the Living Donor Transplantation and Dialysis Access Program at MGH and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School (HMS) will study TNX-1500 in kidney transplantation in a variety of models including non-human primates. The goal of the collaboration is to advance TNX-1500 as a potential first-in-class therapeutic to prevent and treat kidney transplant rejection.
Dr. Kawai said, “Anti-CD40-ligand therapy has a unique activity in controlling the immune response to organ transplants.2 There remains a significant need for new treatments to reduce the toxicity of current treatments by more selectively suppressing immune responses or inducing specific tolerance to the transplanted organ. Anti-CD40-ligand has shown promise not only to effectively suppress rejection but also to facilitate ‘transplant tolerance’ in multiple preclinical transplant models.6”
Read full article, here.