Transplants / Organ Donations News From Medical News Today
Latest Health News and Medical News posted throughout the day, every day.
The first pooled kidney transplants involving three donor-recipient couples where each recipient received a kidney from a donor they did not know, has successfully taken place in the UK. The transplants took place at the end of 2009 and involved three hospitals, Hammersmith and Guy's and St Thomas' in London, and the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh...
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that Vitamin D is crucial to activating our immune defenses and that without sufficient intake of the vitamin, the killer cells of the immune system - T cells - will not be able to react to and fight off serious infections in the body...
Liver transplantation specialists recently convened to address U.S. guidelines for allocation of organs for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, liver cancer). Representatives from more than 130 U.S. transplant centers were invited to the conference and participants included 180 leaders in liver transplantation (LT) from the 50 most active centers...
The experimental drug belatacept can prevent graft rejection in kidney transplant recipients while better preserving kidney function when compared with standard immunosuppressive drugs, data from two international phase III clinical trials show. The results are published in the March issue of the American Journal of Transplantation...
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE:BMY) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee has voted 13 to 5 to recommend approval of belatacept, a selective co-stimulation blocker, for the prophylaxis of acute rejection in de novo kidney transplant patients...
Researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new assessment tool to measure the severity of symptoms that can complicate stem cell transplantation. The tool assesses symptoms resulting from chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), and was presented with supporting research at the 2010 Bone and Marrow Transplant Tandem Meeting...
One year post-surgery, patients who underwent Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK) experienced greater cell loss overall compared to those who underwent penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), according to a new analysis of data collected from the Cornea Donor Study (CDS) Investigator Group's 2008 Specular Microscopy Ancillary Study (SMAS)...
Bone marrow transplant patients say two of the most debilitating side effects of the treatment are nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and radiation. But a Loyola University Health System study has found the drug aprepitant can dramatically reduce both nausea and vomiting when combined with other anti-nausea drugs...
Researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new assessment tool to measure the severity of symptoms that can complicate stem cell transplantation. The tool assesses symptoms resulting from chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), and was presented with supporting research at the 2010 Bone and Marrow Transplant Tandem Meeting...
An international research team led by Columbia University Medical Center successfully used mouse embryonic stem cells to replace diseased retinal cells and restore sight in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa. This strategy could potentially become a new treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of blindness that affects approximately one in 3,000 to 4,000 people, or 1...
For the first time, a woman has given birth to two children after her fertility was restored using transplants of ovarian tissue that had been removed and frozen during her cancer treatment and then restored once she was cured. Following her ovarian transplant, Mrs Stinne Holm Bergholdt gave birth to a girl in February 2007 after receiving fertility treatment to help her become pregnant...
Two studies published in the latest issue of Cell Transplantation (18:12) may lead to new treatments for heart diseases. The first study, carried out by a team of Brazilian researchers, found that cell transplantation of bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs) directly into the heart benefited patients suffering from refractory angina...
HeartWare International, Inc. (Nasdaq: HTWR; ASX: HIN), a leading innovator of less invasive, miniaturized circulatory support technologies revolutionizing the treatment of advanced heart failure, announced the conclusion of patient enrollment under its "ADVANCE" clinical trial...
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALNY), a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that it has initiated a Phase IIb trial in adult lung transplant patients with ALN-RSV01, an RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection...
A host of celebrities from the British Asian, African and Caribbean communities joined forces today to launch a campaign designed to raise awareness and encourage members of South Asian and Black communities to join the NHS Organ Donor Register...
