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Howard University Surgeon Clive Callender Heralded for Minority Organ Transplantation Achievements

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“Legendary Howard University transplant surgeon Dr. Clive O. Callender has been honored by the 2021 American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) with its Pioneer Award, the most distinguished award bestowed by the organization upon an individual. The award comes as National Minority Donor Awareness Month is observed in the month of August. 

In a video message announcing the award, ASTS past president Dr. Marwan Abouljoud said that when he started his career 28 years ago in Detroit, all of his learnings and readings on transplant awareness and organ donation kept leading him back to the works of one individual.”

Watch the video and read more, here.

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Pharma CEO Faces Personal Fight for a New Breed of Organ Donors

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“A doctor at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., had just told Rothblatt and her wife, Bina, that the couple’s youngest daughter, 9-year-old Jenesis, had a rare medical condition that likely gave her three years to live. The arteries between Jenesis’s heart and lungs had narrowed, choking off oxygen and placing an unsustainable burden on her heart as it struggled to send blood through her thinning blood vessels, like trying to push water through a hose with a kink in it. The condition, known as pulmonary arterial hypertension, was progressive, and there were no approved treatments, short of a lung transplant—almost unheard-of in children.”

Read more, here.

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Immunocompromised to unvaccinated: You’re still a community

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3 Clark County women hope unvaccinated people stop and consider those who are at high risk of serious complications from COVID-19

“As people across the United States continue to flout the COVID-19 vaccine and cases of the delta variant surge, those living with compromised immune systems have a dire plea: consider the safety of others.

Jennifer Browning, Nicole Arneson and Laura Ellsworth are three friends living in Clark County who have all had kidney transplants. For them, life during the pandemic means strictly following the same COVID measures mandated for the general public before a vaccine ever became available.

“We don’t do the things that vaccinated people are doing and because we’ve been told by our medical providers that you need to continue to live as if you’ve been unvaccinated,” said Ellsworth.”

Watch the interview here.

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Here’s Who Made This Year’s List of Top Hospitals

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— Top hospitals for 15 specialties, including cancer, cardiology, and orthopedics, also ranked

Cardiology & Heart Surgery

1. Cleveland Clinic

2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

3. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

4. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell

5. NYU Langone Hospitals, New York

6. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

7. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

8. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Palo Alto, California

9. UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles

10. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

Read full article and see final list, here.

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Minnesota man’s kidney donation to a stranger helped national registry hit a milestone

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“A Minnesota man who donated a kidney to save another person’s life also set a record in the process.

Ben Rengstrof is a high school teacher with a mission, which started with a lesson learned after his father received a lung transplant two years ago.

“A kidney donation really isn’t that invasive of a surgery,” said Rengstrof. “And so I decided I had to do it.”

With the kidney donation, Rengstrof became an altruistic donor. He didn’t know the person receiving his kidney. He also didn’t know that he was making history.”

Read full story, here.

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New Generation Artificial Heart Implanted in Patient at Duke – First in U.S.

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 “A surgical team at Duke University Hospital, led by Drs. Jacob Schroder and Carmelo Milano, successfully implanted a new-generation artificial heart in a 39-year-old man with heart failure, becoming the first center in North America to perform the procedure. 

The artificial heart was developed by CARMAT and has been studied in Europe, where it is approved for use. Last year, the company received FDA approval to begin studies in the U.S. to potentially enroll 10 patients with end-stage biventricular heart failure. The study will evaluate whether the artificial heart is a viable option as a life-saving step before transplant.”

Read more, here.

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CDC advisory committee voices support for immunocompromised people getting boosters

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During the last year and a half, immunocompromised people have been at extremely high risk for the virus. And for many, the COVID vaccine didn’t change that.

That’s why a group of independent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts at a Thursday meeting largely voiced support for allowing immunocompromised people to talk to their doctors about getting a third shot, a booster, that could increase their antibody response to vaccines.

Read more, here.

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FDA Approves Tacrolimus for Lung Transplants

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of the transplant drug tacrolimus (Progaf) for the prevention of organ rejection in adult and pediatric patients receiving lung transplants. This is the only immunosuppressant drug approved for this patient population.

Tacrolimus has been routinely prescribed to lung transplant recipients for the past 15 to 20 years and is “the primary calcineurin inhibitor used as the backbone of immunosuppression for lung transplants,” Joshua Diamond, MD, associate medical director of the Penn Lung Transplant Program at Penn Medicine, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, told Medscape Medical News in an interview.

Read more, here.

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MAYO CLINIC STUDY EXPANDS CRITERIA TO BE A LIVING KIDNEY DONOR

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Mayo Clinic says the pool of people who can be living kidney donors has expanded following the results of a recent study. Doctors say the results can help save more lives.

Previously transplant physicians were concerned about transplanting kidneys from patients with high blood pressure because of the possible long-term health impacts to them while living with just one kidney.

The study from Mayo Clinic included more than 100 patients and was conducted over 20 years. Dr. Mark Stegall, the Professor of Surgery at Mayo Clinic Rochester, says researchers found certain individuals with controlled hypertension can safely donate a kidney.

Read more, here.

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J&J Recalls Aveeno, Neutrogena Spray Sunscreens

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“Johnson & Johnson is recalling most of its Neutrogena and Aveeno spray sunscreens from U.S. stores after detecting benzene, a potentially cancer-causing chemical, in some samples.

J&J said Wednesday consumers should stop using and discard five of its six Neutrogena and Aveeno spray sunscreens. The company said it is also notifying distributors and retailers to stop selling the products, and arranging for the return of the products.

A company spokesman said the effort would include removing products from shelves.”

Read more about the recall and what to do, here.

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