Researchers at the University of Virginia have received more than $8.6 million to support efforts that could dramatically increase the number of lungs available for transplant – and then save the lives of the people who receive them.
Surgeons at Johns Hopkins Medicine report that their first series of a minimally invasive procedure to treat chronic pancreas disease, known as severe pancreatitis, resulted in shorter hospital stays, less need for opioids and fewer complications, compared with standard surgical approaches.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Toronto have uncovered the first molecular steps that lead to immune system activation and eventual rejection of a transplanted organ.
In a Canadian first, a medical team has implanted a wireless device inside a heart failure patient, permitting clinicians to monitor the patient’s cardiovascular status – virtually and in real-time – and proactively adjust treatment to prevent costly, potentially unnecessary hospitalization.
In the first such collaboration of its kind, an expert panel of rheumatologists and orthopedic surgeons has developed guidelines for the management of anti-rheumatic medication in patients undergoing hip or knee replacement. The goal was to lower the risk of infection, which is linked to the use of the medications.
Scientists have discovered that a subset of immune cells called nonclassical monocytes (NCMs), previously unknown to reside in the lungs, play a key role in driving primary graft dysfunction (PGD), the leading cause of death after lung transplantation. The study demonstrates targeting these cells could lead to novel treatments for PGD, a complication that currently impacts more than half of transplant patients.
UAB researchers have made the first direct demonstration that fecal donor microbes remained in recipients for months or years after a transplant to treat the diarrhea and colitis caused by recurrent Clostridium difficile infections.
• A new calculator estimates the likelihood that a given patient who receives a kidney transplant from a particular living donor will maintain a functioning kidney.
• The calculator may be especially useful for kidney paired donation.
The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine will launch a new center that will focus on understanding tissue regeneration and pioneering future developments in stem cell biology as a means to repair diseased organs and tissues.
Researchers from Houston Methodist and Italian super sports car maker Automobili Lamborghini are working together on new carbon fiber materials for implantable devices used in therapeutic drug delivery and orthopedics.
Combining a new hydrogel material with a protein that boosts blood vessel growth could improve the success rate for transplanting insulin-producing islet cells into persons with type 1 diabetes.
Patients with hepatitis C who suffer from advanced stages of liver disease have renewed hope, thanks to findings by researchers who have discovered that a new drug significantly reduces their risk of death and need for transplantation.
For some patients undergoing intestinal or multi-organ transplantation, closing the abdominal wall poses a difficult surgical challenge. Total abdominal wall transplantation provides an alternative for abdominal closure in these complex cases, according to a state-of-the-art approach presented in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Stanley C. Jordan, MD, a pioneering kidney transplant researcher, has received the International Society of Nephrology’s highest honor for groundbreaking work that improves the lives of kidney transplant patients while preserving the precious resource of donated organs.
• Patients who received kidney transplants from donors with diabetes had better survival compared with those who remained on the waitlist.
• Patients at high risk of dying while on the waitlist and those at centers with long wait times may benefit the most from transplantation with kidneys from diabetic donors.
In a study published today in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, have found that the best chance of survival, for older patients, those who live in areas with long waits for transplantation, or those who already have diabetes, may come from accepting a kidney from a deceased donor who had diabetes.
A growing number of patients who suffer severe ankle arthritis are undergoing ankle replacement surgery, enabling them to walk again without pain.
Helping drive the trend are new implants and surgical techniques that are improving outcomes.
When a person loses a hand to amputation, nerves that control sensation and movement are severed, causing dramatic changes in areas of the brain that controlled these functions. As a result, areas of the brain devoted to the missing hand take on other functions. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri have found evidence of specific neurochemical changes associated with lower neuronal health in these brain regions. Further, they report that some of these changes in the brain may persist in individuals who receive hand transplants, despite their recovered hand function.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic have identified a possible cause for a rare infection in heart and lung transplant recipients: the donor. The way in which heart and lung transplant recipients acquired a specific species of bacteria, Mycoplasma hominis, had been previously undefined, and the bacterium was difficult to test. Originally, this bacterium was considered to reside exclusively in, and be a potential pathogen of, the area of the reproductive and urinary organs – the genitourinary tract.
Researchers examined the mechanisms of B cell immune reconstitution in pediatric patients who had undergone bone marrow transplantation and discovered a disruption in the maturation of B cells – critical to the immune system – preventing the production of antibodies that fight infection.
The agenda for the TVT (Transcatheter Valve Therapies) is now available online: http://www.crf.org/tvt/the-conference/agenda. TVT 2017 is a practical three-day course featuring the latest research and state-of-the-art techniques for transcatheter aortic and mitral valve therapies. For 10 years, TVT has provided healthcare professionals with the latest advances, tools, and techniques for the treatment of valvular heart disease using nonsurgical procedures.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with collaborators across the nation, have determined that magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) can be an accurate, non-invasive tool to identify liver fibrosis in children. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is now the most common cause of chronic liver disease in children, and scarring of the liver, known as fibrosis, is a major determinant of clinical outcomes.
A new, personalized and noninvasive treatment using 3-D printed implants has been developed to help children born with abnormally small or missing eyes (microphthalmia/ anophthalmia, or MICA). The research is being presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Baltimore, Md.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed biomimetic bone tissues that could one day provide new bone marrow for patients needing transplants.
Children with chronic lung diseases often must wait months or even years for a transplant, while large, immobile hospital equipment that could help them breathe easier actually may worsen their condition by overtaxing already damaged lungs.
A novel treatment offers kidney failure and kidney transplant patients with a rare disorder new hope. The treatment allows targeted elimination of plasma cell clones producing abnormal proteins that deposits in the kidneys and leads to kidney failure, according to new research.
Researchers have discovered that a new anti-rejection drug that is gentler on the kidneys after liver transplant also reduces weight gain, which is common after surgery and can lead to serious problems for transplant patients.
Treating donor corneas with a cocktail of molecules prior to transplanting to a host may improve survival of grafts and, thus, outcomes in high-risk corneal transplant patients, according to a new study led by researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
Ten patients at Penn Medicine have been cured of the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) following lifesaving kidney transplants from deceased donors who were infected with the disease. The findings point to new strategies for increasing the supply of organs for the nation’s more than 97,000 patients who are awaiting kidney transplants – often for as many as five or more years.
2017 American Transplant Congress: NewYork-Presbyterian’s World-Renowned Transplant Experts at Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Medical Center Presenting and Available for Comment
• Researchers have developed a risk calculator that estimates the risk of kidney failure after donation.
• Overall risk was quite low, but black race and male sex were associated with increased risks of developing kidney failure in living kidney donors.
• Older age was associated with greater kidney failure risk in nonblack donors, but not in in black donors.
• Higher body mass index and a close biological relationship to the transplant recipient were also associated with increased risks of kidney failure.
Winner of the Synthes Skull Base Award, John Y.K. Lee, MD, FAANS, presented his research, Folate Receptor Overexpression Can Be Visualized in Real Time During Pituitary Adenoma Endoscopic Transsphenoidal Surgery, during the 2017 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting
In an important step toward using transplanted cells to treat liver failure, researchers demonstrate successful transplantation of fetal rat liver cells to an injured adult rat liver.
A new clinical trial seeks to determine whether a machine that pumps warm, oxygenated blood in cadaver livers can improve the quality of the organ prior to transplant.
In October 2016, Jonathan Koch, a 51-year-old entertainment executive from Los Angeles, underwent a 17-hour procedure to replace the hand he lost to a mysterious, life-threatening illness. Six months after surgery by the UCLA hand transplant team and countless hours of physical therapy, Koch continues to make remarkable strides in his recovery.
A Chicago police officer has become the 900th patient to receive a life-saving lung transplant at Loyola Medicine. “It’s given me a whole new life,” said officer Theresa Boss-French. “Since my transplant, I have not coughed once or struggled to breathe.”
Researchers discovered three novel genetic mutations associated with Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy, the most common corneal disorder requiring transplantation.
At this moment, more than 118,000 people in the United States are in need of a lifesaving organ transplant. And 64 percent of them are currently on a waiting list – to which roughly 1 person is added every 10 minutes – according to the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS). That’s 75,868 people in line for a transplant. Unfortunately, only about half of them will actually receive the transplant they need this year. In an effort to encourage more people to register as organ and tissue donors, folks at Penn Medicine are tackling the issue from a few different angles – from advocacy to research to policy.
Hematologist-oncologist Ahmad Samer Al-Homsi MD, MBA, will lead a new bone marrow transplantation program at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center for treating blood-borne cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and utilize transplantation as an adjunct to immunotherapy for solid tumors.
Surgeons at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) performed five heart transplants in four days to place the institution among an elite group of transplant centers in the country — reaching 1,000 heart transplantations.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with a cohort of clinical collaborators from across the United States, have demonstrated the impact of low and high birth weights in developing Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), a chronic disease that often leads to a need for organ transplantation.
• Among deceased donor kidney transplant recipients, those who were >30 kg (66 pounds) heavier than the donor had a 28% higher risk of transplant failure compared with equally weighted donors and recipients.
• If the kidney was from a smaller donor of the opposite sex, the relative risk of transplant failure was further elevated to 35% for a male receiving a kidney from a female donor and 50% for a female receiving a kidney from a male donor.