By Brenda Goodman, CNN
Researchers say they have been able to tap a new pool of organ donors to preserve and transplant their hearts: people whose hearts have stopped beating, resulting in so-called circulatory death.
Traditionally, the only people considered to be suitable organ donors were those who have been declared brain-dead but whose hearts and other organs have continued to function.
Read the full story in CNN.
Ryan Scoble thought he had the flu. He soon learned he was in heart failure and needed a transplant. Still, he hoped to return to the lacrosse field.
By Meghan Holohan
Two years ago, Ryan Scoble was playing lacrosse when he felt short of breath and fatigued. He wondered if he had the flu.
“I was struggling in warmups. I got in late in the third quarter,” the 23-year-old lacrosse long stick middie from Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, told TODAY’s Harry Smith. “I was struggling to make plays and even really stand up.”
Read the full story on Today.
By Bob Yirka
A team of medical researchers from Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York has found that mortality rates are higher for transplant patients receiving a new heart from a person infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus than from those not infected. In their study, reported in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the group analyzed data in the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database related to COVID-19. Read more in Medical Xpress.
In the United States alone, there are more than 100,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant.
By Linda Ha
Hannah Grinnan celebrated her 25th birthday and 25th heart transplant anniversary this past April, which also marked National Donate Life Month. She has dedicated her life to educating others about the miracle of organ donation and the impact it can have on those in need.
Hannah was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) while in the womb, a critical congenital birth defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart. Read more in ANN.
By Zulekha Nathoo
A toddler in need of a heart got a corridor full of cheers while heading into surgery.
As 15-month-old Mark Clouse Jr. was wheeled through the hospital to the operating room at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, medical staff showered the little boy with applause, affection and soap bubbles.
Read the full story in USA Today.
A Culver City teen who has dreams of being an NBA star complained of a stomach ache, two weeks later he got a heart transplant.
SAN DIEGO — A teenage boy with big NBA dreams is recovering from a life-threatening scare.
14-year-old Mario Luna III says a stomachache turned into needing a heart transplant.
The teen says he’s loves playing basketball with friends and anyone who enjoys getting to play some ball. “Just the fun and aggression because it gets good when it’s starting to have fun,” said Luna.
Read or watch the full story on CBS News 8 San Diego.
It started with a phone call.
In 1985 I was a Fellow in transplant surgery at Stanford University Medical School, operating under the tutelage of Dr. Norman Shumway. Shumway is considered the “Father of Heart Transplantation,” a title fitting for my mentor who was a research-grounded, scientist-surgeon.
Read the full story in Forbes.
32-year-old Colleen Barber has partnered with care teams at Loma Linda University International Heart Institute longer than she can remember — from receiving a heart transplant as a baby to recently undergoing a minimally invasive procedure to close a hole called an atrial septal defect (ASD) in her transplanted heart.
Structural interventional cardiologists Jason Hoff, MD, and Amr Mohsen, MD, frequently team up to perform heart procedures that involve repairing or replacing valves and treating other structural abnormalities like holes in the heart. Read the full story from Loma Linda University News.
Patients seen at transplant centers had almost 80% higher odds to receive “bridge-to-transplant” designation
January 13, 2023 — A change to Medicare policy surrounding heart transplant may lead to increased inequities in access to transplant for patients with heart failure, a Michigan Medicine study finds.
When a patient has severe heart failure, both a heart transplant and left ventricular assist device, which is implanted to assist the heart in improving blood circulation throughout the body, can be lifesaving. While LVADs continue to improve, heart transplant remains the gold standard therapy for end-stage heart failure. Read more in Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology (DAIC).
Patients with heart transplants involving donation after circulatory death have no detectable difference in survival compared with those with hearts donated after brain death, according to a study published in Circulation: Heart Failure.
Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) registry, the researchers identified adult heart transplant recipients from January 2019 to September 2021 and used propensity-score matching to compare 1-year mortality between patients with hearts donated after circulatory death and those with hearts donated after brain death. Read more in Healio.