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Results for search "Organ Transplants".

Health News Results - 131

Researchers hope findings from a new study of liver transplant patients will lead to improved interventions for those from racial and ethnic minority groups.

The study — led by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas — found the risk of dying while waiting for a liver transplant was higher among patients from four minority groups. Their risk for a failed transplant was...

Weight-loss surgery may help patients struggling with obesity and kidney failure become eligible for a lifesaving transplant, researchers report.

Obesity is a key reason why some kidney patients are turned down for a transplant.

But weight-loss surgery "not only helps in reducing the patients' weight to a level where they can safely receive a transplant, but also addresses the broad...

A technique doctors use to preserve donated organs is actually doing no good, and might even be harming the organs, a new study reports.

Physicians routinely dose deceased organ donors with thyroid hormones, in a bid to preserve heart function and keep the donors' organs healthy and viable.

But thyroid hormone treatment made no significant difference in the number of hearts successf...

An Arkansas man maimed by a massive electrical shock to his face has successfully received the world's first whole-eye and partial face transplant.

In a 21-hour surgery performed in May, a NYU Langone Health surgical team transplanted an entire left eye and the portion of a face from a single donor onto Aaron James, a 46-year-old military veteran from Arkansas who survived a work-related,...

“Davey” Bauer hovered on the precipice of death, his lungs damaged by vaping and congested by antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Doctors saved his life with a jury-rigged artificial lung, a prompt double-lung transplant… and a set of DD breast implants.

Doctors at Northwestern Medicine crafted an artificial lung to keep Bauer, 34, alive after removing lungs so heavily infected th...

The second person to ever receive a transplanted pig heart has died.

Lawrence Faucette, 58, got the transplant just six weeks earlier at the University of Maryland Medical Center in an experimental procedure.

Unfortunately, the heart had been showing signs of rejection in the days before his death, CNN reported.

  • Robin Foster HealthDay Reporter
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  • November 1, 2023
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  • A liver transplant can give people a new lease on life, but at the cost of lifelong immune-suppressing medication and its risks. Now an innovative approach to reduce, or possibly eliminate, certain patients' reliance on those drugs is showing early promise.

    The tactic is aimed at priming a transplant recipient's immune system to better tolerate liver tissue from a living donor. A week bef...

    Two years after a gene-edited pig kidney was transplanted into a monkey, researchers report the monkey is still alive.

    “We're the only group in the field to comprehensively address safety and efficacy of our donor organ with these edits,” said study co-author

  • Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
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  • October 13, 2023
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  • A second human patient has received a genetically altered pig heart as he battles the ravages of end-stage heart disease.

    The 58-year-old man, Lawrence Faucette, received the pig organ at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

    The medical team was the same one that performed the first pig transplant with another patient in January 2022.

    “We are once again o...

    Receiving an organ transplant can be a nerve-wracking, if lifesaving, affair, said Dr. Joaquin Brieva, a kidney transplant recipient.

    “Within two days of my transplant, my kidney function was back to normal, but then you worry about the possibility of ...

    For the first time ever, a solid humanized organ has been grown from scratch in an animal — a first step in a process that could potentially solve organ shortages and save countless lives.

    Chinese researchers grew partially human early-stage kidneys inside embryonic pigs, using a variety of genetic engineering techniques, a new report reveals.

    “This study demonstrates proof-of-p...

    A new study in non-human primates shows potential for using a manmade monoclonal antibody to help prevent organ rejection after a transplant.

    The antibody was successful in promoting graft survival after kidney and pancreatic islet cell transplantations, according to the research.

    This clears a path for this new monoclonal antibody to move forward in human clinical trials, the rese...

    Valance Sams Sr. believes that he has experienced "a miracle."

    Sams, now 46, underwent a triple organ transplant in the spring of 2023, making him one of fewer than 50 people in the United States to ever receive three new organs via transplantation.

    He received a new heart, kidney and liver during a 20-hour operation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles that involved around...

    Genetically engineered pig kidneys are nearing the point where they could provide a government-approved, sustainable supply of organs for sick humans awaiting a transplant, a pair of new studies argue.

    A lightly modified pig kidney has continued to function more than a month in a brain-dead human donor kept alive on a ventilator, according to an ongoing study conducted at NYU Langone Heal...

    Dennis Deer woke from surgery in utter disbelief that he was breathing normally.

    He'd been on supplemental oxygen for two years, and “I didn't know what it was like not to have something on my face,” said Deer, 51, a Chicago-area politician and psychologist.

    “I immediately said, 'Where is my oxygen?' And my wife said to me, ‘Well, you don't need the oxygen anymore,'" Deer re...

    Many transplant centers routinely practice “list-diving,” when the top candidate among potential organ recipients is skipped in favor of someone further down the list, new research shows.

    The top candidate is ranked that way based on an objective algorithm using age, waiting time and other factors, while choosing someone else happens with little oversight or transparency. And that may...

    A new transplant method that "reanimates" donor hearts appears safe and effective, a new clinical trial has found — in an advance that could substantially expand the supply of donor hearts available in the United States.

    The trial tested an approach that allows doctors to transplant hearts from donors who have succumbed to "circulatory death" — meaning the heart has stopped beating. T...

    Storing donor lungs at cool — but not near freezing — temperatures can markedly increase the length of time the organs can live outside the human body, a new study suggests.

    Lungs stored at 50 degrees Fahrenheit remain healthy and viable for transplant up to four times longer than those stored at the current standard temperature of 39 degrees, according to new clinical trial results.<...

    Far more people need an organ transplant than there are organs available.

    It doesn't have to be that way.

    Dr. Johnny Hong, chief of transplantation at Penn State Health's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, explored some of the myths about organ donation.

    “We have an organ sh...

    A single nonprofit has what amounts to a monopoly over all organ transplants performed in the United States, but the federal government said Wednesday that it plans to change that.

    The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which has contracted with the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to run the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network for 37 years, announced ...

    Retired nurse Tannaz Ameli was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last winter. When chemotherapy failed, her doctors recommended hospice care.

    But Ameli, of Minneapolis, had other ideas. She and her husband sought out a pioneering medical team at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. Today, she is a survivor of a double-lung transplant -- just the second this team of specialists has succ...

    Doctors have discovered a way to extend the short shelf life of donor hearts, which could hopefully make more of the organs available to desperate recipients.

    Valproic acid (Depakote), which is approved to treat seizures, boosts production of an enzyme that increases the length of time donated hearts can be stored and transported.

    The drug also could improve the hearts' function aft...

    Massachusetts legislators have proposed a bill that would allow prison inmates to donate their organs or bone marrow as a way to trim the length of their sentence.

    While some experts wonder about the ethics of such a law and whether it would even be allowed under federal law, a Democratic sponsor of the bill,

    A new way of allocating donor lungs that eliminates geographical restrictions could save more lives, new research suggests.

    In early 2023, the current U.S. system, which looks for compatible candidates within a fixed radius, will be replaced by the Composite Allocation Score. The new score will prioritize a candidate's medical needs.

    “The importance of removing the geographical ba...

    Once a year, giant motorcycle rallies ride into places like Daytona Beach, Fla., and Sturgis, S.D., bringing hundreds of thousands of people, an economic boost -- and a wave of crash-related deaths.

    That means more organs available for donation and the need to be prepared, according to a

  • Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
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  • November 29, 2022
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  • The difference between age 69 and age 70 is, of course, just a single year.

    Yet, organizations that receive organs for transplant patients are less likely to choose one from the older donor, a new study finds.

    American organ procurement organization...

    Less than a year after the first-ever transplant of a pig heart into a human patient, doctors are reporting that the heart showed unexpected changes in its electrical system before the recipient ultimately died.

    The changes are not believed to have contributed to the patient's death. But experts said that the observation will help in preparing for any such transplants in the future.

    A person with heart failure in dire need of a new heart may have faced delays in getting one during the pandemic when potential donors tested positive for COVID-19.

    As some centers began accepting these hearts for transplant anyway, data from a new study shows that...

    Some human livers are tougher than others, lasting more than 100 cumulative years between the organ's original host and a transplant recipient, a new study discovers.

    Understanding what makes these livers so resilient could help improve the donor pool by paving the way ...

    Using only mouse stem cells, British researchers report they have created synthetic embryos that form a brain, a beating heart and other organs.

    The stem cells organized themselves until they developed beating hearts and the foundations of the brain and yolk sacs where the embryo...

    Children who need kidney transplants have better long-term outcomes when the donor is a living person and not someone who has died and donated organs, a new study finds.

    "The findings of our study should lay to rest any fears and concerns that centers have about accepting organs from unrelate...

    Minutes after a heartbeat stops, a massive series of disastrous events triggered by lack of blood flow begins to destroy a body's cells and organs.

    This chain of events had been thought to be inevitable and irreversible. Now, a new animal study shows that

  • Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
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  • August 3, 2022
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  • Genetically altered pig hearts could soon become a viable transplantation alternative for people with life-threatening heart disease, new experiments show.

    A team at NYU Langone Health has successfully transplanted two such pig hearts into brain-dead humans on life support, making advances that may soon help address the nationwide organ shortage.

    No signs of early rejection were obs...

    For women who can't get pregnant because they don't have a uterus or the one they have no longer works properly, uterine transplants can indeed help these women become mothers, new research shows.

    Of 33 women who received a uterus transplant...

    Researchers have figured out a way to safely give children a donor kidney without the need for immune-suppressing drugs -- an advance they hope to expand to many more kidney transplant patients in coming year...

    A 3-D printed ear made with the patient's own cells has been transplanted onto a 20-year-old woman, the company that made the ear says.

    The achievement announced June 2 by 3DBio Therapeutics of New York City is believed to be the first known example of a 3-D printed implant made of living tissues. Experts hailed it as a major advance in...

    Even before the pandemic, the demand for donor kidneys far exceeded supply. That shortfall only worsened when hospitals started refusing to use kidneys from COVID-positive donors.

    However,

    An investigation into the death of the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has discovered that the organ had an animal virus, but it's not clear if the virus was a factor in the patient's death, University of Maryland Medical Center doctors say.

    They found viral DNA inside the pig heart transplanted into 57-year-old David Bennett Sr., 57, who

  • By Robert Preidt and Robin Foster HealthDay Reporters
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  • May 6, 2022
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  • If you're thinking about donating a kidney, new research could alleviate your concerns.

    "The results of this study are extremely reassuring for individuals who are considering being living kidney donors. We found that this lifesaving surgery, when performed at experienced transplant centers, is extremely safe," said study co-author Dr. Timucin Taner, chair of transplant surgery at Mayo Cl...

    As Americans stepped up their drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic, liver disease and transplants surged.

    Between March 2020 and January 2021, the number of U.S. patients with alcohol-associated liver disease who received a new liver or were wait-listed for a transplant was 50% higher than pre-pandemic projections, researchers say.

  • By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter
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  • April 16, 2022
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  • For those waiting during the pandemic for a new kidney or liver, new research is reassuring: Organs from deceased donors who had COVID-19 did not cause infection in recipients and posed no risk to health care workers.

    In a study that began in September 2021, the Duke University School of Medicine team assessed

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  • March 23, 2022
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  • The first person to receive a pig heart transplant in a groundbreaking procedure performed at the University of Maryland Medical Center in January has died, hospital officials said Wednesday.

    David Bennett, a 57-year-old Marylander, suffered from severe heart disease and had agreed to receive the experimental pig's heart after he was rejected from several waiting lists to receive a human ...

    It's possible to create "universal" donor organs that would eliminate the need to match transplant donor and recipient blood types, researchers report.

    "With the current matching system, wait times can be considerably longer for patients who need a transplant depending on their blood type," said senior study author Dr. Marcelo Cypel, surgical director of the Ajmera Transplant Centre, Univ...

    In response to claims that a man was denied a heart transplant because he refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said Wednesday that its transplant policies mirror those used across the United States.

    In a crowdfunding appeal for 31-year-old D.J. Ferguson, a father of two, his family said the hospital told him he was ineligible to receive a new ...

    COVID-19 is changing medicine in yet another way: A new study finds that patients with COVID-related lung damage now account for nearly one in 10 lung transplants in the United States.

    The researchers analyzed data on more than 3,000 lung transplants nationwide between Aug. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021. They found that 7% of them were performed to treat severe, irreversible lung damage cau...

    In another breakthrough for animal-to-human organ transplantation, U.S. researchers say they've transplanted two genetically modified pig kidneys into a living human.

    The recipient was Jim Parsons, 57, a brain-dead man on life support whose family agreed to allow the surgical team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to use his body for this research.

    The kidneys functio...

    In a medical first, doctors from the University of Maryland have implanted the heart of a genetically modified pig in a 57-year-old man facing the final stages of heart disease.

    The surgical feat, known as

  • Robin Foster HealthDay Reporter
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  • January 11, 2022
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  • You were lucky enough to receive a kidney years ago, but now it is failing. Is it better to opt for another transplant or go on dialysis?

    New research suggests a second transplant may be the better option.

    Kidney transplants from deceased donors function for a median ...

    After nearly dying from a severe case of COVID-19, a young male patient received a successful heart transplant even as he was recuperating from his infection while on a ventilator, a new case study reports.

    The transplant was performed on the 31-year-old patient at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in May.

    It's one of the first cases of its kind in the wor...

    If you're a patient with a weakened immune system, roll up your sleeves to stay safe over the holidays and winter months.

    "Immunocompromised patients absolutely should get a flu shot as well as an additional COVID-19 vaccine dose," said Dr. Marwa Kaisey, a neuroimmunologist and assistant professor of neurology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.

    "Otherwise, they are more likely to have ...