You were lucky enough to receive a kidney years ago, but now it is failing. Is it better to opt for another transplant or go on dialysis?
New research suggests a second transplant may be the better option. Read the full story in HealthDay.
Genetically engineered pig hearts were successfully transplanted into recently deceased humans as part of an effort to create a xenotransplantation protocol for patients with heart disease.
The team of surgeons who performed the investigational procedures observed no early signs of organ rejection over 72 hours. Nader Moazami, MD, surgical director of heart transplantation at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute who led the team, said it was “a milestone and a steppingstone in the right direction.” It was the top story in cardiology last week. Read the full story in Healio.
Among white women, pregnancies after donating a kidney pose similar complications to those experienced by the general population; although, a low increase in risk is observed.
Further, investigators observed similar fetal and neonatal risks among pregnancies before and after donation. Read more in Healio.
No veteran should die waiting for a kidney transplant. However, as of the July 4th weekend, there were 1,781veterans across the United States on a waiting list. Sharyn Kreitzer is on a mission to eradicate the wait.
Three years ago, Kreitzer founded the nonprofit Donor Outreach for Veterans, or DOVE. Her mission is to locate living kidney donors for higher risk patients.
Read the full story in MilitaryTimes.
ST. LOUIS — A rare genetic liver disease that afflicts 100,000 Americans has evaded treatment by scientists and doctors for decades.
Now, after 29 years of research, a St. Louis University scientist and his team are on the cusp of a solution. Read the full article in the St. Louis-Dispatch.
“These kidneys are going to last forever,” one researcher said.
Three children who have undergone kidney transplants in California will likely be spared from ever having to take anti-rejection medication, because of an innovative technique that eliminates the need for lifelong immunosuppression, ground-breaking new research suggests.
Scientists at Stanford Medicine detailed the cases Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. All three children have an extremely rare genetic disease called Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia, or SIOD, that often destroys a person’s ability to fight off infection and leads to kidney failure. In each case, a parent donated stem cells taken from bone marrow, as well as a kidney. Read the full story from NBC News.
Mortality among kidney transplant patients with COVID-19 and those on dialysis with COVID-19 was similar during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Europe.
“A number of studies compared mortality in the first and second waves among patients receiving kidney replacement therapy (KRT). These studies were hampered by the fact that they were single center by design and consequently had a small sample size,” Priya Vart, PhD, from the department internal medicine at the University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands, and colleagues wrote. “Furthermore, they lacked information on key patient and disease-related characteristics, including comorbidities, the reason for COVID-19 screening and disease symptoms.” Read more in Healio.
Kidneys act as blood filters for the human body. Normally, kidneys filter approximately half a cup of blood every minute. During the filtration process, the kidneys remove wastes and extra water, resulting in urine. Sometimes, because of certain underlying kidney diseases, they fail to filter the blood correctly. This can lead to kidney failure. Read the full article from CBS Miami.
Surgeons at New York University (NYU) transplanted two genetically modified pig hearts into individuals who were brain dead, and saw good cardiac function, with no signs of immediate rejection during a 72-hour observation period.
The xenotransplants were conducted on June 16 and July 6 at NYU Langone Tisch Hospital in New York City, and had 10 genetic modifications aimed at preventing rejection and stopping abnormal organ growth. Read more in MedPage Today.
A recent study found that fecal microbiota-based screening may help detect early-stage pancreatic cancer.
Researchers reported that fecal metagenomic classifiers performed significantly better than saliva-based classifiers in identifying patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. It was the top story in gastroenterology last week. Read more in Healio.