heart – Page 2 – Allocare

July 27, 2021August 16, 2022

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

— 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.

July 25, 2021August 16, 2022

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

“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.”

How organ transplants work

“When a person needs an organ transplant, it is because one of their organs is working very poorly or failing. Undergoing an organ transplant can lengthen a person’s life and allow those with a chronic illness to live a normal lifespan.

Many people need an organ transplant due to a genetic condition such as polycystic kidney disease, cystic fibrosis, or a heart defect.

Infections such as hepatitis, physical injuries to organs, and damage due to chronic conditions such as diabetes may also cause a person to require a transplant.

Surgeons performed more than 36,000 organ transplants in 2018, but many more people need organs. In January 2019, more than 113,000 people in the United States were on organ transplant waiting lists. More than 2,000 children need organs.

The transplant process varies slightly depending on the organ, but the need for a matching donor is a consistent theme.”

Learn more, here.

July 18, 2021August 16, 2022

Heart, Death Risks Linked With CKD-Related Iron Deficiency

Regardless of anemia, iron deficiency in patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD) was linked with adverse health outcomes, an observational study found.

In 5,145 patients with stage 3-5 CKD not on dialysis, a transferrin saturation (TSAT) of 15% or less was associated with a higher risk for all-cause mortality before reaching dialysis or kidney transplant, as compared to TSAT levels of 26-35% (HR 1.44, 95% CI 1.03-2.01), according to Roberto Pecoits-Filho, MD, PhD, of the Arbor Research Collaborative for Health in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and colleagues.

FDA Approves Drug to Reduce Risk of Serious Kidney and Heart Complications in Adults with Chronic Kidney Disease Associated with Type 2 Diabetes

“FDA has approved Kerendia (finerenone) tablets to reduce the risk of kidney function decline, kidney failure, cardiovascular death, non-fatal heart attacks, and hospitalization for heart failure in adults with chronic kidney disease associated with type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease and kidney failure in the United States. Chronic kidney disease occurs when the kidneys are damaged and cannot filter blood normally. Because of defective filtering, patients can have complications related to fluid, electrolytes (minerals required for many bodily processes), and waste build-up in the body. Chronic kidney disease sometimes can progress to kidney failure. Patients also are at high risk of heart disease.”

Read the full report by the FDA, here.

June 14, 2021June 11, 2021

He died of a brain aneurysm, and his heart was preserved for donation with warm-temperature ‘perfusion.’ The technique may help others.

The doctors said there was no hope. Alex Anaya was just 29, yet a weakened blood vessel had ruptured in his brain, and surgeons couldn’tsave him.

Family members decided that he should be removed from a ventilator, and they gathered at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to say goodbye. His heart would keep beating for a while on its own, but soon he would die.

Then the family was approached by a coordinator from Gift of Life, a nonprofit that arranges organ transplants in the Philadelphia region. She told them, gently, that it might be possible to restart Anaya’s heart and save someone else. But it would require the use of a new device to “perfuse” the organ with a warm solution of nutrients and oxygenated blood, allowing it to beat outside his body until it was time for the transplant.

Read full story, here.

May 5, 2021August 16, 2022

Despite COVID Vaccinations, Caution Still Crucial for Transplant Recipients

“Long before COVID-19 changed the world, organ transplant recipients were wearing masks to shield themselves from airborne threats.

Immunosuppressive medicines, which often are a lifelong requirement after a transplant, add an extra layer of protection against viruses as common as a cold or as dangerous as COVID. Transplant patients are told to use masks for any group gatherings or airplane flights, and hand sanitizing is a must.

While COVID has brought a heightened awareness of these patients’ health risks and fragility, a recent study by Johns Hopkins University researchers in Baltimore, Maryland, and a report from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, may raise their sense of unease even further.”

Read the full article, here.

April 15, 2021April 15, 2021

The ‘Heart’ of the Matter is That an Organ Donation Saved Sam Dey’s Life

In 2009, Sam Dey was working for General Motors and in India on business.

It was during that business trip that Sam started falling.

“I was collapsing and falling in these incredibly crowded streets of India,” says Sam. “I was falling everywhere, and people were always pouring water on my face to revive me.”

Doctors in India told Sam—who had congestive heart failure and type 2 diabetes—that his badly damaged heart would prevent him from returning to the United States.

Sam ended up being stranded in India from 2009 until 2014.

Read Sam’s full story, here.

April 13, 2021August 16, 2022

How Common is Cancer in Organ Transplant Recipients?

As an organ transplant recipient, you already “know” several things:

You know what the anxiety and stress of end-stage organ disease feels like
You know that your life has been improved after receiving your transplant
You know that by taking care of your transplant, you can reduce the risk of rejection of the organ

Did you also know that the important immunosuppressants (anti-rejection medications) you take to prevent your body from rejecting your transplanted kidney, heart, lung, or liver may increase your risk of developing certain types of
cancer?¹

While the risk of dying from cancer is low, you need to be proactive and get screened for various types of cancer—most notably skin cancer.

Read the full article, here.

April 6, 2021August 16, 2022

‘Heart in a Box’ Expands Transplant Opportunities

The Smidt Heart Institute, Home of the Nation’s No. 1 Adult Heart Transplant Program, Uses Transmedics Organ Care System (OCS) to Grow Geographic Area of Service, Enabling More Lifesaving Organ Transplants

Dominic Emerson, MD, and Pedro Catarino, MD, both transplant surgeons with the Smidt Heart Institute, know how to be spontaneous. At any given moment, they can get the call that a donor heart or lungs are available, requiring them to quickly board a private aircraft to procure the vital organs.

Until recently, those flights were quick jaunts lasting no more than four hours—the time a donor heart can survive on ice. Now that is all changing, thanks to a medical device called the OCS Heart, or “Heart in a Box,” which enables transplant surgeons to travel to much farther destinations to procure lifesaving organs by acting as a miniature intensive care unit that keeps the heart alive.

“Cedars-Sinai has the biggest adult heart transplant program in the world and takes on some of the most complex surgical cases,” said Emerson, associate surgical director of heart transplant and mechanical circulatory support and surgical co-director of the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit at Cedars-Sinai. “The Heart in a Box technology is helping break down a major barrier of transplantation, ultimately offering many patients a second chance at life.”