The United States has a government agency solely devoted to reducing automobile deaths in the United States, and it spends billions of dollars each year—and requires auto companies to do likewise—in an attempt to make our nation’s roads and the cars that travel on them safer.
However, more people die from kidney disease than from automobile accidents, but we lack any concerted effort to reduce these deaths.
Read the full story in Forbes.
Kristal Higgins just wants to be healthy, become a nurse and travel to Greece. But she has kidney failure and has been on a transplant waiting list for six years.
The disease and its comorbidities have touched many of her loved ones. Her mother has stage 2 kidney disease. Her father is diabetic, a risk factor for kidney failure, as was her late grandmother. Several of her relatives have kidney failure. Read more in USA Today.
“I’d give my kidney for a …”
It’s not the most common idiom being bandied about, but you hear it from time to time, as a means of expressing a strong desire. Rarer, still, is the person who says, “I’d give my kidney.” Period. No qualifiers. Read the story in USA Today.
In 2022 the millionth organ transplant in the U.S. took place, and Atrium Health is proud to be part of that amazing accomplishment. Two of those recipients are fraternal twins Ashtin and Amelia, who credit their surgeons and the transplant and dialysis teams at Atrium Health for changing their lives.
Read more from Atrium Health.
Estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is the best marker of allograft function and is a predictor of allograft and patient survival among kidney transplant recipients. Measurement of true GFR is costly and time-consuming, while eGFR is a relatively inexpensive and efficient marker to track allograft function.
Read more in Nephrology Times.
ST. LOUIS, MO (11/18/2022) — With a new grant that brings together engineering expertise from Missouri S&T and medical expertise from Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine, researchers are investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) can support matchmaking between donated kidneys and transplant centers to help more patients in need.
Thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead site Missouri S&T, experts in AI and organ transplantation will work to ensure that more kidneys are able to be used by patients who urgently need them. Read more from Saint Louis University.
Kidney transplant patients like Tessa Adolph, from Rockford, Illinois, face an age-old problem to protect their new kidney and bodies after transplant surgery: how to prevent infections while also safeguarding their new kidney from damage or rejection.
In Adolph’s case, the risk came from the BK virus.
At 19, she was diagnosed with Henoch-Schönlein purpura, a rare condition that causes small blood vessels in the body organs, including kidneys, to become inflamed and bleed. This transitioned into a condition called IgA nephropathy, or Berger’s disease, that over time can cause kidney scarring and eventual kidney failure, she said. Read the full article from UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Although survival benefits for patients who received a kidney transplant varied, the benefits of kidney transplants were greater for all patients when compared with long-term dialysis.
All patients who are eligible for a kidney transplant should be able to participate in a transplant program because receiving a kidney transplant was demonstrated to be associated with increased survival compared to long-term dialysis, according to the authors of a recent study published in JAMA Network Open. The study is considered a pioneer in quantifying survival benefit through the use of restricted mean survival time (RMST). Read the full story in Pharmacy Times.
Getting a kidney transplant gives you a new lease on life. A successful transplant gives you increased strength, stamina and energy — but while you’re recovering from surgery, you may not quite feel that way yet.
If you’re about to undergo kidney transplant surgery, here’s what you need to know about recovery. Read more from the Cleveland Clinic.
BEING DIAGNOSED WITH KIDNEY FAILURE comes with many challenges. Medications, dialysis, the physical and emotional exhaustion. It’s all the more difficult if you develop end-stage kidney disease and need a kidney transplant.
For these individuals, there are only three treatment options: