Liver Transplant News and Research

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When a patient presents with end stage liver disease or liver failure he or she may be considered for a liver transplantation. The first step in this is often a rigorous assessment and being placed on a waiting list.

California jury rules insurer should pay for out-of-state operation; Mass. probe shows insurers' payments can vary widely

The Los Angeles Times: "A Los Angeles jury concluded Monday that Anthem Blue Cross should cover the cost of an out-of-state liver transplant that a California man paid for after the insurer balked. In addition, the jury ordered Blue Cross to pay plaintiff Ephram Nehme's legal expenses, which could dwarf the $206,000 cost of the transplant. Blue Cross approved Nehme's liver transplant in late 2006, and he was on the waiting list at UCLA Medical Center.

17 Mar 2010

First Edition: March 16, 2010

In today's headlines, ongoing efforts by President Obama and Democratic leaders to press and persuade wavering votes in support of health reform take center stage.

16 Mar 2010

Liver transplantation specialists form guidelines for allocation of organs for patients with HCC

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.

5 Mar 2010

Trial for lawsuit against Anthem Blue Cross begins in California

The insurer "refused to pay for" customer Ephram Nehme "to get a liver transplant in Indiana because the company wanted to save money, a lawyer for the patient told jurors Monday," the Los Angeles Times reports. "But a lawyer for the state's largest for-profit insurer argued that the patient, Ephram Nehme, was not sick enough to qualify for an exception to his policy's requirement that transplants be performed in Blue Cross-contracted hospitals in California.

23 Feb 2010

First Edition: February 23, 2010

Today's headlines focus on President Obama's revamped health reform proposal, what it includes and how Democrats, Republicans and the insurers are reacting to it.

23 Feb 2010

Insurer allegedly, automatically denies request for liver transplant: Trial commences on 22nd Feb

A trial beginning Monday targeting the nation's largest health insurer, WellPoint Inc., and its California subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, for allegedly automatically denying requests for out-of-network liver transplants will help shed light on the need for stronger health reform than is currently being considered, according to Consumer Watchdog. The group urged President Obama, White House representatives, and the national news media to follow the trial.

22 Feb 2010

Mayo Clinic Health Letter features comprehensive coverage of the liver

The liver, the largest internal organ, is the body's ultimate multitasker. While the liver is not glamorous or sentimental -- there are no love songs about a broken liver -- it simultaneously plays a key role in the body's metabolic, digestive and regulatory systems.

12 Feb 2010

Minimally invasive living donor liver retrieval for pediatric transplant

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital is the only medical center in the United States to offer minimally invasive liver donation for pediatric transplantation. Surgeons use a laparoscopic technique to remove a section of liver from a living donor for implantation in a pediatric patient -- typically a parent donating to their child. The innovative approach promises dramatically improved recovery for the donor.

2 Feb 2010

Study evaluates hepatocyte transplantation as an alternative to liver transplantation

A research team from the National Taiwan University Hospital has evaluated the efficiency of transplanted hepatocyte (liver) cells in animal models severely damaged by two kinds of chemical toxicity to see whether and how transplanted hepatocytes were able to efficiently repopulate the toxin-induced, severely damaged livers.

2 Feb 2010

Transplant tourism: Ethical issues

A recent case study by doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York examined the ethical issues posed by transplant tourism, an offshoot of medical tourism, which focuses solely on transplantation surgery. Many American transplant professionals frown on the practice of transplant tourism where patients travel to countries such as China, India, and the Philippines for their transplantation.

28 Jan 2010

Hypothermic machine perfusion outperforms standard cold-storage liver preservation

Preserving organs on ice prior to transplantation, an approach known as cold storage or CS, has been the standard practice in liver transplant for 20 years. Now there is new evidence that a technique called hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) may offer an improvement, according to the first-ever study comparing the impact of the two techniques on transplant outcomes.

27 Jan 2010

Institute of Medicine urges healthcare providers to take steps to battle hepatitis B and C

The Institute of Medicine, a branch of the US National Academy of Sciences, is urging healthcare providers to take steps to battle liver-damaging hepatitis B and C, which are often overlooked viruses.

25 Jan 2010

Discovery of new class of compounds may help fight hepatitis C

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have discovered a novel class of compounds that, in experiments in vitro, inhibit replication of the virus responsible for hepatitis C. If these compounds prove effective in infected humans as well, they may dramatically accelerate efforts to confront this virus’s propensity to rapidly acquire drug resistance, while possibly skirting some of the troubling side effects common among therapies in current use and in late-stage development.

21 Jan 2010

Boston Scientific commences patient enrollment in its WallFlex Biliary RX Fully Covered Stent trial

Boston Scientific Corporation today announced that the first patient has been enrolled in a clinical trial to evaluate its WallFlex® Biliary RX Fully Covered Stent for the treatment of benign bile duct strictures. This multi-center, prospective study plans to enroll 187 patients at 11 centers worldwide over the next 18 months.

17 Jan 2010

Abraxis Bioscience awards John Wayne Cancer Institute $1M grant for identifying new cancer biomarkers

A $1 million grant from Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. to a world-famous research laboratory at John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center could help save lives of cancer patients by helping doctors more rapidly assess whether a treatment is working or not.

12 Jan 2010

Additional education to liver transplant candidates increases live donation and donor evaluation

A recent study found that living donation increased 42% and the number of individuals who presented for donation evaluation increased 74% at centers in New York. The surge in live donation and donor evaluation occurred after additional education was provided to liver transplant candidates.

8 Jan 2010

Life-saving therapeutic interventions possible with early detection of hepatitis C recurrence

A recent study by doctors from the Hospital Cl-nic in Barcelona, Spain determined that repeated liver stiffness measurements (LSM) in the first year following liver transplant (LT) could discriminate between slow and rapid "fibrosers" (patients with fibrosis stage of F2-F4 one year post LT).

6 Jan 2010

New CIHI study highlights that Canada needs to retrieve more organs for transplants

The availability of donated organs in Canada rose by more than one-quarter (28%) over the past decade, but this increase is not keeping pace with demand. More than 1,000 Canadians donated organs in 2008, up from 812 in 1999, according to a new study released today by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

23 Dec 2009

NIH awards Lentigen a SBIR grant for program to generate Hepatitis C Virus-Like Particles

Lentigen Corporation, a biotechnology company specializing in the development and manufacture of lentiviral gene delivery technologies, announced today that it has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) small business innovation research (SBIR) grant for a program on "A Novel Method of Generating Hepatitis C Virus-Like Particles using Lentivirus". In this program, Lentigen will collaborate with Epixis SA (Paris, France).

9 Dec 2009

Comparison study finds no significant differences in post-transplant survival rates of NASH and ETOH groups

Researchers at the University of Miami School of Medicine compared the outcomes of cirrhotic patients who underwent liver transplants for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) versus alcoholic liver disease (ETOH) and found no statistically significant differences in post-transplant survival rates between the NASH and ETOH groups

25 Nov 2009