Latest liver transplant Stories
MILWAUKEE, April 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Children's Hospital of Wisconsin recently performed a rare double organ transplant to save the life of Thomas Castillo, a 15-year-old Illinois boy with complex congenital heart disease and liver failure. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120424/CG93246-a) (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120424/CG93246-b) A multidisciplinary team at Children's Hospital replaced Castillo's two organs during a 17-hour surgery. James...
Kovler Organ Transplantation Center employs techniques to expand the living donor pool CHICAGO, April 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Newly released data from the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) indicates that Northwestern Memorial Hospital's living donor kidney transplant program is the largest in the country based on volume of transplants from last year. In 2011, surgeons performed 154 living donor kidney transplants. Northwestern Memorial also ranked among the...
Success at Texas Hospital Offers Hope for Millions Affected by Liver-Destroying Hepatitis C SAN ANTONIO, March 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Liver transplant surgeons at a San Antonio hospital are poised to save hundreds of lives as deaths from liver-destroying hepatitis C increase, with recent reports indicating baby boomers are highest risk. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120314/DC70663) The Liver Transplant Program at Methodist Specialty and...
New way for doctors to predict who needs liver transplants University of Utah mathematicians developed a set of calculus equations to make it easier for doctors to save Tylenol overdose patients by quickly estimating how much painkiller they took, when they consumed it and whether they will require a liver transplant to survive. "It's an opportunity to use mathematical methods to improve medical practice and save lives," says Fred Adler, a professor of mathematics and biology and...
U-M researchers identify modifiable risk factors that could limit the incidence of post-transplant end-stage renal disease Research from the University of Michigan Health System shows the risk for kidney failure among liver transplant recipients is higher following the implementation of Model of End Stage Liver Disease (MELD), a policy change in 2002 that altered how liver transplant allocation is decided. The study, led by Pratima Sharma, M.D., M.S., an assistant professor in the...
Transplant surgeons live in the hope that one day they will be able to wean at least some of their patients off the immunosuppressive drugs that must be taken to prevent rejection of a transplanted organ. A team of researchers led by Alberto Sánchez-Fueyo, at the University of Barcelona, Spain, has now identified markers that might make this possible for liver transplant recipients. Transplant recipients must take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent rejection of...
Patients with liver cancer and low MELD scores may not find similar benefit New research shows liver transplantation candidates without hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) derive a greater survival benefit from a living donor liver transplant (LDLT) than waiting for a deceased donor liver transplant (DDLT). The study now available in the October issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, reports that...
Follow-up dose recommended to defend children against pandemic virus outbreakResearchers from Australia determined that pediatric liver transplant patients who received a single-dose of the H1N1 vaccine were not adequately protected against the virus compared to healthy children. This study appearing in the August issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, found that a second vaccination was needed to elicit an effective immune...
Smoking cessation after liver transplantation reduces incidence of malignancySpanish researchers have found that liver transplant recipients who quit smoking have a lower incidence of smoking-related malignancies (SRM) than patients who keep smoking. In fact, SRMs were identified in 13.5% of deceased patients and smoking was associated with a higher risk of malignancy in this study. Full findings are published in the April issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association...
SAN DIEGO, March 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- iTherX, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering and developing a new class of therapies for hepatitis C, today announced that it has commenced patient recruitment in an open-label, proof-of-concept Phase 1b study of its lead compound ITX-5061 in liver transplant patients with hepatitis C virus infection (HCV). ITX-5061 represents a first-in-class compound that inhibits entry of the hepatitis C virus into liver cells. "ITX-5061 possesses a...
