Organ donation

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News • Organ preservation

Perfusion machine takes time pressure off liver transplantation

A special perfusion machine preserves donor livers for an extended period of time without compromising organ quality. New Dutch research has confirmed the safety of the procedure for recipients.

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News • Cardiology & Surgery

Heart in a box - First beating-heart transplantation

Using an organ from a donor who underwent cardiac death, Stanford Medicine surgeons transplanted a heart while it was beating - the first time such a procedure has been achieved.

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News • Surgery

Clinical trial shows superior preservation of donor lungs at 10 degrees

Storing donor lungs for transplant at 10 degrees Celsius markedly increases the length of time the organ can live outside the body.

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News • OrQA

Transplant organ quality assessment via AI: a promising approach

A pioneering new method to assess the quality of organs for donation has the potential to revolutionise the transplant system, saving lives and tens of millions of pounds.

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News • Cardiology research

Are hearts from Covid-19 positive donors safe for transplantation?

Donor hearts from people who were Covid-19-positive appear to be as safe for transplantation as those from people without Covid-19, according to a new short-term analysis.

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Article • LTX overview

Lung transplant surgery: last hope for patients with advanced lung diseases

Despite treatment, chronic lung diseases such as COPD or cystic fibrosis can become so severe that a lung transplant is necessary. Dr Urte Sommerwerck explains which patients might be considered for…

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News • Donor organ analysis

New laser technique could improve liver transplant process

Handheld laser devices that help surgeons quickly spot liver damage could transform transplant procedures, research suggests. The non-invasive technique could provide medical staff with instant data on the health of donor livers and help them to identify which organs are suitable for transplant. If widely adopted, the light-based tool could allow more livers to be transplanted safely and…

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News • Venous cannula system

New circulation implant to bridge the waiting time for donor heart

With the first-in-man implantation of the Berlin Heart Venous Cannula at the LMU University Hospital Munich, Germany, Berlin Heart offers patients with a failing Fontan circulation a unique chance to survive the waiting time for a donor heart. These patients are in a life-threatening condition: their health has deteriorated so much that they desperately need a new heart, but because of their poor…

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News • Immune response regulation

Using iPS cells to fight transplant rejection

Scientists suggest a new strategy that uses induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to regulate immune reaction to transplanted tissues. The team, led by Professor Ken-ichiro Seino of Hokkaido University’s Institute for Genetic Medicine, found that thymic epithelium cells derived from mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can regulate immune response to skin grafts, extending their…

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News • Donor organ assessment

New quality feature to predict kidney transplant failure

New research indicates that subtle structural features of donated kidneys from living donors may predict the risk of kidney transplant failure in recipients. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of JASN, may help clinicians as they evaluate the quality of organs at the time of transplantation. The quality of donated kidneys obtained from living donors is often inferred from their age,…

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News • Transplant breakthrough

Machine keeps liver alive for one week outside of the body

Researchers from the University Hospital Zurich, ETH Zurich, Wyss Zurich and the University of Zurich have developed a machine that repairs injured human livers and keeps them alive outside the body for one week. This breakthrough may increase the number of available organs for transplantation, saving many lives of patients with severe liver diseases or cancer. Until now, livers could be stored…

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Article • Blood transfusions

Donor organs become immunologically invisible

The safety of blood transfusions is questioned again and again by the mass media. Sometimes ‘bad’ blood causes infections; sometimes a transfusion leads to cancer years later. The fact is that transfer blood is subjected to the highest safety standards – there are very clear statutory regulations. Nonetheless, there will be shortages of ‘life’s fluid’ because, given increasing…

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News • Organ transplantation

New insights into rejection of transplanted organs

The consequences of organ rejection in transplant patients can be devastating. Professor A. Vathsala, co-director of the National University Centre for Organ Transplantation at the National University Hospital (NUH) and professor of medicine, says that between 30 percent to 40 percent of kidney transplants are lost over time to rejection. She and Associate Professor Paul MacAry of the Department…

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Article • Organs and qualified surgeons drop

Will transplant medicine have a future in Germany?

‘Do we want transplant medicine? And if yes, what are we prepared to change in public policy, society and medicine?’ This question characterises the current situation within this medical discipline. Since the 2011 transplant scandal, there has been a steady decline in organ donations according to the German Foundation for Organ Donation (DSO). Although there were some 1,200 transplant donors…

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News • Organ donation

Suitable transplant kidneys may be lost due to flawed testing

New research indicates that many kidneys obtained for transplantation from deceased donors are not being used because of biopsy findings despite their unreliability and reproducibility. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) and will be published at ASN Kidney Week 2018, may suggest an urgent need to re-examine the…

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News • Anti-rejection medicine

Drugs used after organ transplant could protect against Alzheimer’s

A UT Southwestern study in mice provides new clues about how a class of anti-rejection drugs used after organ transplants may also slow the progression of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s, a progressive form of dementia, affects an estimated 5 million people in the U.S. – a number expected to nearly triple by 2050. Although Alzheimer’s usually strikes after age 65, changes in…

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News • Organ transplantation

Many discarded donor kidneys in fact still suitable

When researchers examined information on pairs of kidneys from the same donor in which 1 kidney was used but the other was discarded, the kidneys that were used tended to perform well even though they were similar in quality to their partner kidneys that were not used. The findings from a study provide further evidence that many of the donated kidneys that are discarded are in fact suitable for…

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News • Widening the pool

Older donor lungs should be considered for transplantation

With a scarcity of lungs available for transplantation, the use of lungs from donors older than age 60 has been shown to achieve reasonable outcomes and should be considered as a viable option, according to research published online in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. “The availability of suitable donor lungs for transplantation continues to be a major obstacle to increasing the number of lung…

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News • Study

How to decrease the discard rate of donated organs

A new study indicates that many donated organs that are discarded might be suitable for transplantation if certain steps are taken to limit damage following donation. The findings appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). In most cases in the United States, transplant organs come from donors following brain death, in which all the functions of the…

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