UNOS announced this past week that 2020 saw an increase in organ donation and as a result more transplants. How could a national pandemic have such an effect?
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After the recent death of a patient who received a lung transplant from a donor who was unknown to be positive for Covid, the transplant community is taking a closer look at donor screening for the disease
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/91464
A new study conducted by John Hopkins was released monday looking at how well the vaccine protects patients who have received a transplant.
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https://apnews.com/article/organ-transplants-coronavirus-pandemic-e6a3ad119cabf5cd8561ef23f1105448e
Before COVID-19, most kidney- and heart-transplant recipients got their weekly or monthly blood tests at the hospital or a local blood-draw center. When COVID-19 touched down, however, hospitals became places where exposure to the coronavirus was higher.
Patients who are on immunosuppression—such as transplant recipients—are likely to be at a higher risk of severe infection and associated complications of COVID-19.1 Therefore, it is critical that transplant recipients have routine access to their transplant-lab testing in environments that limit their exposure to the coronavirus.
How do you solve such a dilemma?
Since March 2020, over 5,000 transplant recipients have turned to RemoTraC.
Learn more about RemoTraC, here.
COVID-19 being what it is, Valen Keefer’s speech at the grand opening of CareDx’s newly expanded CLIA lab in Brisbane, California was a unique virtual event.
Valen was there as a virtual robot, sharing her inspiring story and leading the countdown for the ribbon cutting.
“Being a transplant recipient is a lifelong journey and having the opportunity to celebrate this new lab is so amazing,” said “Robot” Valen.
Valen’s journey as a multi-organ transplant recipient has been a compelling one—to say the very least.
She has lived through polycystic kidney disease (PKD), dialysis, lengthy hospital stays, a kidney transplant, and a liver transplant. She is a survivor through and through, with a prodigious passion for helping the transplant community.
Read Valen’s full story, here.
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.
Recipe By: Chef Chloe Gould