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Organ Transplants Are Up, but the Agency in Charge Is Under Fire

2024-03-28T20:57:55-04:00September 20th, 2022|Categories: Dialysis, eNews, Kidney Transplant|

By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio September 7, 2022 For the past decade, Precious McCowan’s life has revolved around organ transplants. She’s a doctoral candidate studying human behavior in Dallas who has survived two kidney transplants. And in the midst of her end-stage renal disease, her 2-year-old son died. She chose to donate his organs in hopes they would save a life. Now her kidney function is failing again, and she’s facing the possibility of needing a third transplant. But the process of finding that lifesaving organ is rife with problems. Roughly 5,000 patients a year are dying on the waitlist — even as [...]

World’s First HIV-Positive to HIV-Positive Heart Transplant Performed

2024-03-28T20:57:59-04:00August 4th, 2022|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

Earlier this spring, a woman in her 60s became the first to receive an HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant. She suffered from advanced heart failure and received the donation, which happened simultaneously with a kidney transplant, during a four-hour surgery at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx. The woman spent five weeks recovering in the hospital and is currently being monitored by transplant physicians at Montefiore. In 2013, the HIV Organ Policy Equality Act enabled people living with HIV to donate their organs to HIV-positive recipients, but this is the first time this opportunity has been able to happen for heart [...]

Telehealth with a Mental Health Professional: What to Know Before You Start

2024-03-28T20:58:07-04:00May 5th, 2022|Categories: Dialysis, eNews, Kidney Transplant, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Stress Management|

By Kirsten Weir If you or a family member are managing chronic kidney disease, you’re probably thinking a lot about physical health—the health of the kidney and the rest of the body. Caring for your mental health is just as important. And with telehealth options that let you see a mental health professional from your home, it’s more convenient than ever. “The increased availability and acceptance of telehealth might be one of the few positive changes to come out of the [COVID-19] pandemic,” says Amy Walters, PhD, a clinical health psychologist and the director of Behavioral Health Services for St. Luke's [...]

DPC’s State Advocacy Efforts Flourish with Elevated Voice of DPC Patient Ambassadors

2024-03-28T20:58:09-04:00April 25th, 2022|Categories: Costs for Treatment, Kidney Transplant, The Kidney Citizen, Uncategorized|

Image: Medigap champion Kentucky State Rep. Tom Burch and Elizabeth Lively, DPC Eastern Region Advocacy Director By Kelly Goss, J.D., LL.M., Western Region Advocacy Director and Elizabeth Lively, Eastern Region Advocacy Director, Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) It’s been a busy start in 2022 for DPC’s state advocacy efforts. Many states are holding shorter legislative sessions due to the upcoming primary elections, and several bills impacting dialysis patients have been introduced and are moving quickly through the legislative process. Legislation to expand Medigap access has been introduced in Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Improving access [...]

My Experience as a Kidney Patient in CKD, Dialysis, and Transplant

2024-03-28T20:58:16-04:00April 25th, 2022|Categories: Diagnosis of Kidney Disease, Dialysis, Home Hemodialysis, In-Center Hemodialysis, Kidney Transplant, Stages of Kidney Disease, The Kidney Citizen|

By Orlando A. Torres After a 30-year battle with chronic kidney disease (CKD), in 2016 I had Stage Five kidney failure. This was the end of a three-decade battle which took countless hours of treatment. For years, I had been followed medically for CKD, having a special test done monthly and eating a special diet. As a CKD patient, my condition affected other organs in my body. The number of regular activities I could do also declined, but I never quit and refused to accept those limitations. I never let CKD limit what I did. I think it is [...]

COVID-19 and Patients with Kidney Disease on Dialysis

2024-03-28T20:58:35-04:00February 25th, 2022|Categories: Dialysis, Employment, eNews, Immunizations, Kidney Transplant, Lifestyle, Mental Health|Tags: |

By Alan Kliger, MD Updated March 18, 2022 I am writing this mid-March 2022, as the last peak of COVID infection with the Omicron variant has rapidly fallen in every US state, but wastewater analysis has shown places in the US where virus infection in some communities is rising again. A new sub-variant, BA.2 is making up about 23% of cases. Abroad, the United Kingdom is seeing increasing hospitalizations with COVID infection, and many locations in the far east have raging infections. The effects of the surge in Omicron cases around the world this past winter have deeply affected [...]

Kidneys: Holy Grail Pursuit of Regenerative Medicine

2024-03-28T20:58:48-04:00December 17th, 2021|Categories: Kidney Transplant, The Kidney Citizen, Treatment|

By Anthony Atala, MD, Director, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Recently, two teams of scientists from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) won first and second place in NASA's Vascular Tissue Challenge, a prize competition that aims to accelerate tissue-engineering innovations. Vascularization of engineered solid organs – like the kidney – is part of the Holy Grail pursuit of regenerative medicine. Being able to create organs with the needed blood vessel structure means the organs are supplied with needed nutrients and oxygen to survive when implanted. The two Wake Forest teams both used 3D bioprinting technology to create [...]

Improving Equity in Dialysis Treatments and Transplants

2024-03-28T20:58:50-04:00December 7th, 2021|Categories: Dialysis, eNews, Kidney Transplant, Treatment|

Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced that it is seeking comments on future rulemaking to support the President’s executive orders to advance health equity and improve health outcomes for people in need of dialysis treatment and transplants. HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra stated, “We want to hear from diverse stakeholders, especially the patients and their families. Your feedback is essential to our work in ensuring equal access to vital resources.” HHS acknowledged that both Black and Latino individuals are more likely to have kidney failure than white individuals in the United States (almost 4 times [...]

Transplant Patients Could Have a New Type of Donor in the Future

2024-03-28T20:58:53-04:00November 1st, 2021|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

During a surgery that took place in September 2021 at NYU Langone Health in New York City, a kidney that was grown in a genetically altered pig was transplanted into a human patient. The patient, who was brain dead and who’s family consented to the surgery, had the kidney attached to the blood vessels in the upper leg outside of the abdomen. It quickly began functioning normally and the entire procedure went better than expected. Although the patient was only followed for 54 hours post-surgery and the research behind the procedure has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal, [...]

COVID-19 Vaccines for Immunocompromised People

2024-03-28T20:58:53-04:00October 22nd, 2021|Categories: eNews, Immunizations, Kidney Transplant, Staying Healthy|

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, ongoing studies help inform healthcare professionals about the different immune responses and reactions among various groups within the population. Data has shown that people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised are especially vulnerable to the virus due to the inability to build the same level of immunity after vaccination as non-immunocompromised people. Small studies have also found that immunocompromised people made up a large portion of breakthrough cases requiring hospitalization, suggesting they could be more likely to transmit COVID-19 to other members of their household. Given this information, the CDC recommends that moderately to severely immunocompromised [...]

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