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What is Preemptive Transplantation?

2024-03-28T21:02:01-04:00June 1st, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

One potential treatment option when a living donor is involved is a preemptive transplant. This is where you get a transplant before going on dialysis or, in some cases, shortly after. Generally, you won’t be a candidate until your kidney disease has at least progressed to stage 3. Then, you and your donor would go through a quickened evaluation process and set a date for surgery before your kidneys completely fail or shortly after. Preemptive transplantation takes place in 17% of all transplants.[1] The surgery is not for everyone, and some potential barriers include: Some patients believe that dialysis is [...]

Paired Kidney Donation

2024-03-28T21:02:03-04:00May 20th, 2016|Categories: Kidney Transplant, The Kidney Citizen|

By Emily Pruitt RN, MSN Living Donor Coordinator, Christiana Care Health System Paired Kidney Donation is an alternative option given to those who are not directly compatible with their recipient. Some transplant programs participate in Paired Kidney Donation, which allows an incompatible donor to still help their loved one who is in need of a kidney transplant. Paired Kidney Donation allows more recipients to have the benefit of living donor kidneys and provides a way for motivated, healthy living donors to still help his or her potential recipient. Essentially, Paired Kidney Donation works by allowing a blood type or crossmatch incompatible [...]

Penn Researchers Find Females More Resistant to Organ Damage Following Kidney Transplant

2024-03-28T21:02:05-04:00May 5th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

After receiving a kidney transplant, women may be less likely than men to experience damage to the new organ from the stopping and starting of blood flow during the procedure. This may be due to gender-specific hormones, according to a new preclinical study and an analysis of patient data published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The stopping and starting of blood flow to an organ can cause tissue damage called ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI), which is a common cause of kidney injury. Specifically in kidney transplantation, [...]

Report Suggests Paying Kidney Donors Could Increase the Number of Donors

2024-03-28T21:02:06-04:00May 5th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

Within the past 12 years, more than 63,000 patients in the United States have died waiting for a kidney transplant, while more than 100,000 currently remain on the transplant list. Meanwhile, the amount of living kidney donors in 2015 only reached a little over 5,000. Now, a new study from the University of Florida College of Medicine suggests offering compensation to living donors could increase the likelihood of kidney donations, which is currently prohibited. In a survey of 1,011 registered voters, 59 percent of respondents would be more likely to donate a kidney if offered $50,000, while 32 percent of respondents were indifferent. [...]

Surgeons to Attempt Transplants and Drug Treatment with Hepatitis C Positive Kidneys

2024-03-28T21:04:41-04:00March 25th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant, Medication|

For several years, kidneys infected with Hepatitis C have been considered unfit for transplants due to the risk for transmission. However, with a new wave of antiviral medications shown to cure Hepatitis C, doctors at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University are planning to attempt transplants with kidneys from deceased Hepatitis C carriers. The patient who receives the kidney would then undergo a 12-week antiviral drug regimen to treat the disease. The trial’s leaders caution that the drugs won’t work for every participant, but argue the process has the potential to eliminate the waste that comes with the disposal [...]

New Procedure Could Make Kidney Transplants From Any Donor Possible

2024-03-28T21:04:46-04:00March 25th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant, News & Events, Treatment|

More than 100,000 patients are currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant, and one of the biggest challenges involves finding a compatible donor to minimize risk of organ rejection. But what if compatibility wasn’t a requirement? Johns Hopkins University recently unveiled a study in which doctors altered a patient’s immune system, allowing the patient to receive a kidney from a previously incompatible living donor. For the study, patient participants underwent a process known as “desensitization.” This is when the immune system’s cells, or antibodies, are filtered from the blood. Doctors waited until the patients’ bodies replenished the antibodies, then [...]

Artificial kidney technology continuing to see major developmental progress

2024-03-28T21:04:47-04:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|Tags: , , |

Currently, there are over 100,000 patients on the kidney transplant waiting list, while only around 17,000 patients receive a transplant every year. A device is in development by a team of scientists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville to try and eliminate this organ shortage.  They are developing an implantable artificial kidney that uses microchip filters and live kidney cells to clean the blood. The microchips are made out of the same silicon elements that are used in computers. Each microchip filter contains pores that hold living kidney cells that mimics the kidney’s function of cleaning waste and fluids from the blood. [...]

What’s New in Kidney Transplantation

2024-03-28T21:04:52-04:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant|

The current system for how organs are distributed is 20 years old. Meanwhile, waiting times have dramatically increased due to the number of people needing kidney transplants.  Several changes were recently recommended to the system, including efforts to match people with transplants so they last for a longer period of time as well as a new focus on providing hard to match people with more of an opportunity for a kidney transplant than in the past. The KDPI- Kidney Donor Profile Index determines how a kidney will be classified based on the criteria of how long the transplanted kidney is likely [...]

Generic Version of Transplant Drug Found to Perform as well as Brand

2024-03-28T21:04:55-04:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant, Medication|

A recent study conducted by the University of Cincinnati found that patient outcomes were almost identical for generic and brand-name versions of tacrolimus, a drug used post-transplant to reduce the risk of organ rejection. With more affordable generics now on the market, the study took a closer look at the outcomes of what have often been referred to as narrow therapeutic index medications. The study’s lead investigator Rita Alloway, PharmD (a research professor of medicine and director of transplant clinical research at University of Cincinnati’s Department of Internal Medicine) presented the study findings at the 2015 American Transplant Congress. The Food [...]

Kidneys That Suffered Acute Injuries May Be Good Candidates for Transplantation

2024-03-28T21:04:55-04:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: eNews, Kidney Transplant, What Causes Kidney Disease|Tags: , |

Studies show that kidneys from deceased donors who had acute injuries (defined as injuries with blood loss that affect the kidney, often sustained in car accidents) are frequently discarded, but could be transplanted with better results than transplants with delayed graft function. (Delayed graft function occurs when a transplanted kidney does not immediately start to function properly and may require some dialysis for a period of time.) Yale Director of Applied Translational Research Dr. Chirag Parikh and colleagues tracked kidneys from 1,632 deceased donors and, as expected, found that kidneys from patients with acute kidney injury were discarded more often. The [...]

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