Transplants under silent attack
The number of patients treated with implants – from cardiac pacemakers, heart valves and vascular implants to artificial hips and knees – is rising worldwide.
Transplantations
DIEP flap reconstruction
In France, every year 15,000 women undergo complete or partial mastectomy due to breast cancer. Only about a third of them, i.e. around 5,000 patients, use the possibilities reconstructive surgery offers and 70 percent of those women opt for an implant although it is associated with a risk of infection because the body might react negatively to the foreign object.
The ESPOIR Study
Professor Axel Haverich and team at the Clinic for Cardiothoracic, Transplant and Vascular Surgery in Hanover Medical School (MHH) have been carrying out research into decellularised heart valves for over 15 years. They trialled a procedure – initially in the laboratory and in animal experiments – which does not cause tissue rejection, is hoped to last a lifetime and, in the case of children,…
Extra-aortic counter pulsation
The C-Pulse, manufactured by Australian-American company Sunshine Heart, Inc. is neither a pulsatile artificial heart nor one of the well-known non-pulsatile left heart support systems
The first human implantations of bioprosthetic artificial hearts
CARMAT, the designer and developer of the world’s most advanced project of total artificial heart, announces today that it has obtained the approval of four renowned international cardiac surgery centers in Belgium, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia to proceed with the first clinical implantations of its bioprosthetic total artificial heart.
France: Transplant surgeons perform outstanding feats
Simultaneous surgical successes open new perspectives for multiple transplants
Liver transplants hit record levels
A record number of liver transplants have been carried out by the Birmingham Liver Teams at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
Total artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices today
Artificial hearts, originally designed to bridge the time on the waiting list for a heart transplant, in recent years have increasingly become an independent treatment option for patients with chronic heart failure (HF).
TAVI's unsung hero
The Danish inventor of an aortic valve for transcatheter implantation (TAVI) gains recognition for his achievement by colleagues within the European Society of Cardiology
Total artificial hearts and ventricular assist devices today
Artificial hearts, originally designed to bridge the time on the waiting list for a heart transplant, in recent years have increasingly become an independent treatment option for patients with chronic heart failure (HF). Interview: Bettina Döbereiner
The chronic lack of donor organs
4,500 scientists, transplant teams and related social groups from 94 countries gathered in Berlin for the International Congress of the Transplant Society.
A gem of transplantation medicine celebrates its 30th year
The Collaborative Transplant Study has evaluated data on approximately 500,000 transplantations worldwide, providing a scientific basis for organ allocation and transplant treatment.
The Spanish Model
The worldwide scarcity of organ donations inevitably draws attention to the so-called Spanish model.
Organ donation
Rumour had it for a while, and many found out when the bomb was finally dropped at, of all places, the Congress of the International Transplantation Society, held in Berlin this July – the waiting list for donor organs in the database of the Eurotransplant Foundation had been manipulated.
Success in preserving organs for transplant
A Birmingham hospital is pioneering a new procedure which aims to maintain and improve the quality of organs for transplantation in recipients on the waiting list.
John Hopkins established protocol to perform facial transplantation
Johns Hopkins surgeons have established a facial transplantation team and are in the process of obtaining approval from the University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) of their protocol to perform the complicated procedure.
Live liver donation safer than previously thought
People who donate a portion of their livers for transplant to a relative or friend whose liver is failing can generally expect to live long, healthy lives and recover safely from the donation surgery, Johns Hopkins researchers have found.
Presumed consent not answer to solving organ shortage in U.S.
Changing the organ donation process in this country from opt-in — by, say, checking a box on a driver’s license application— to opt-out, which presumes someone’s willingness to donate after death unless they explicitly object while alive, would not be likely to increase the donation rate in the United States, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.
Cardiac resynchronisation therapy
From guidelines to daily clinical practice: Cardiac resynchronisation therapy is increasingly important in heart failure treatment. The therapy is complex, the demands to medical technology high. Holger Zorn reports
Keeping donor organs ‘alive’ in transit
Although donor organ management is improving, the number of heart transplants is decreasing. According to Eurotransplant, 115 heart transplants were performed in the first quarter of 2011 compared to 149 of such interventions in the same period last year.
Celebrating a 25-year-old ‘heart’
Initially meant to bridge the gap before a heart transplant is performed, today ventricular assist devices (VADs) are increasingly considered ‘a lasting therapy option’, according to Professor Heinrich Schima, Head of the Centre for Medical Physics and Biomedical Technology at the Medical University of Vienna.
Coronary heart disease
Bypass surgery figures declined again in 2010. Reason: Most coronary heart disease (CHD) patients are being treated by removal of the obstruction followed by stent implantation -- a situation criticised by Professor Jochen Cremer, first Vice President of the DGTHG (German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery).
Heart replica ready for human tests
A little over three decades after the world's first human heart transplant (HT), Carmat’s life-size artificial heart, a mix of animal tissue, titanium and missile technology that perfectly replicate a human heart, might save the lives of thousands.
The International Liver Congress 2011
Over 8,000 international clinicians and scientists travelled to Berlin in March to attend the International Liver Congress 2011, hosted by The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), to hear the latest research, perspectives and treatments in hepatology.