Heart Transplantation News and Research

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A heart transplant is an operation in which the diseased heart in a person is replaced with a healthy heart from a deceased donor. Ninety percent of heart transplants are performed on patients with end-stage heart failure.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is damaged or weakened and can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. "End-stage" means the condition has become so severe that all treatments, other than heart transplant, have failed.

13-hour lifesaving heart/liver transplant performed on pulmonary atresia patient

A 28-year old man from Georgia, David Krech, is recovering from a rare, lifesaving heart/liver transplant on October 15 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The 13-hour operation followed a five-month journey as he awaited a suitable heart and liver donor.

17 Nov 2010

Brigham and Women's, and UI Hospitals and Clinics begin certification for SynCardia artificial heart implantation

SynCardia Systems, Inc. announced today that Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and University of Iowa (UI) Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City, Iowa, have begun certification to implant the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart. Brigham and Women's will complete Phase I of certification on Nov. 1 & 2, and UI Hospitals and Clinics completed Phase I on Oct. 21 & 22.

30 Oct 2010

PolyMedix plans PMX-60056 Phase 2 clinical trial in interventional cardiology

PolyMedix, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing new therapeutic drugs to treat infectious diseases and acute cardiovascular disorders, has announced plans for a Phase 2 clinical trial of PMX-60056 in interventional cardiology, and the establishment of a focused Heptagonist Clinical Advisory Board (CAB). PMX-60056 is a synthetic small-molecule designed to reverse the anticoagulant activity of heparin and low molecular weight heparins (LMWH).

21 Oct 2010

Cedars-Sinai physicians to lead St. Jude Medical's transcatheter aortic valve implantation clinical trial

St. Jude Medical, Inc., a global medical device company, today announced that physicians from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute will lead the company's transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) clinical trial. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the St. Jude Medical transcatheter aortic valve for patients who experience severe aortic stenosis and who may be at an elevated risk for open-heart surgery.

29 Sep 2010

AB5000 VADs can restore normal hemodynamics in AMI cardiogenic shock patients: Report

Results from the U.S. registry of Abiomed, Inc. AB5000 patients were recently published in the September 2010 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The paper, "Use of the AB5000TM Ventricular Assist Device in Cardiogenic Shock After Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)," concludes that the "results from this nationwide registry suggest that VADs can restore normal hemodynamics and support recovery of native cardiac function in the majority of survivors when conventional therapies fail."

21 Sep 2010

Heart patients with Type D personality at higher risk of future cardiovascular problems

Heart patients with the "distressed" (Type D) personality profile may face a higher risk of future cardiovascular problems, according to a summary article published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

15 Sep 2010

VCU Pauley Heart Center to investigate portable, mechanical driver for powering artificial hearts

The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center is the lead institution in a national clinical trial of technology that will allow artificial heart patients to recuperate, rehabilitate and wait in the comfort of their own homes until a donor heart becomes available for transplant.

10 Sep 2010

FDA approves IDE study to evaluate HeartWare Ventricular Assist System

HeartWare International, Inc., a leading innovator of less invasive, miniaturized circulatory support technologies that are revolutionizing the treatment of advanced heart failure, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an IDE (Investigational Device Exemption) Supplement that allows HeartWare to enroll a second allotment of 54 patients in its "ADVANCE" bridge-to-transplant clinical trial under a Continued Access Protocol (CAP).

4 Sep 2010

Noninvasive monitoring of cardiac allograft vasculopathy with fast MR imaging

Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV), also known as chronicle rejection, is a leading cause of graft (foreign heart) loss and death in patients who survive the first year after heart transplantation. The typical pathological change of CAV is gradually thickening of coronary wall in "foreign" heart due to continuous immunological reaction between donated heart and the host. In some cases, undetected CAV may silently cause graft failure with global myocardial ischemia without any documented infarction signs. Thus, continually monitoring development of asymptomatic CAV is important for selecting prophylactic strategies to get better prognosis. However, most current examinations of detecting CAV are invasive and with certain risks.

22 Aug 2010

New guidelines for care of heart transplant recipients from ISHLT

Since the dawn of heart transplantation in the 1960s, medical care of heart transplant recipients has varied from center to center and been guided by the experience of individual clinicians. The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) has made an unprecedented commitment by convening experts in all areas of heart transplantation to develop practice guidelines for the care of heart transplant recipients.

26 Jul 2010

JHM, All Children's Hospital sign letter of intent to integrate

Johns Hopkins Medicine and All Children's Hospital & Health System of St. Petersburg, Fla., have signed a letter of intent to integrate. After appropriate due diligence is completed sometime later this year, ACH will join the Johns Hopkins Health System (JHHS) as a fully integrated member of JHM.

21 Jul 2010

VCU Medical Center ranked in 2010-2011 Best Hospitals

The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center on Thursday was ranked in the 2010-2011 Best Hospitals in the country by U.S. News and World Report, making it one of 152 medical centers nationwide selected out of nearly 2,000 eligible institutions.

16 Jul 2010

ISHLT issues first international consensus formulation of standardized nomenclature for CAV

Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV), the major limitation to long term survival after heart transplantation, occurs when blood vessels in a transplanted heart progressively narrow and lead to dysfunction of the heart muscle or sudden death. Ascertaining benefit from appropriate treatment for this condition has been hampered in part because of the lack of a standard nomenclature.

2 Jul 2010

Race matching among donors and recipients has no effect on survival rates: Study

Transplant surgeons at Johns Hopkins who have reviewed the medical records of more than 20,000 heart transplant patients say that it is not simply racial differences, but rather flaws in the health care system, along with type of insurance and education levels, in addition to biological factors, that are likely the causes of disproportionately worse outcomes after heart transplantation in African Americans.

1 Jun 2010

Clinical Data expands PGxHealth's FAMILION tests to include two new tests to diagnose heart diseases

Clinical Data, Inc., announced today that its PGxHealth division is expanding its FAMILION family of genetic tests to include two new tests to diagnose heart diseases. With the launch of a test for Conduction Disease associated with Dilated Cardiomyopathy and a test for Short QT Syndrome, PGxHealth continues to lead the industry with the most comprehensive menu of genetic tests to diagnose or confirm familial heart diseases.

12 May 2010

Heart and liver transplant recipients at higher risk of developing lung cancer: Researchers

Heart and liver transplant recipients are at particularly high risk of developing lung cancer after receiving the donated organ, researchers report at the 2nd European Lung Cancer Conference. They are advising doctors to screen for such cancers in these patients to maximize the chance of detecting the malignancy early.

3 May 2010

Artificial heart to be a reality soon, expect researchers

There is good news for heart patients waiting in line for a heart transplant. A team of researchers in Queensland, Malaysia, Germany and Japan are working on an artificial heart. They plan to try it first in sheep.

29 Apr 2010

Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute presents new findings on heart transplantation rejection factors

Physician scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute are presenting new findings on heart transplantation rejection factors such as race and gender, the effects of pre-transplant smoking and whether homeless organ donors put recipients at higher risk for complications. The presentations will take place April 21 - 24 in Chicago during the 30th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

26 Apr 2010

AlloMap molecular expression test reduces need for invasive heart-muscle biopsies

Monitoring rejection in heart transplantation patients with a simple blood test co-developed by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center physician-scientist Dr. Mario Deng in 2005 can safely reduce their need for invasive heart-muscle biopsies, a new study has found.

24 Apr 2010

Continuous flow mechanical circulatory support devices improve outcomes in patients awaiting heart transplants

New data show improved outcomes, better survival rates and lower costs with the use of continuous flow mechanical circulatory support devices in patients awaiting heart transplants. Research will be presented this week during symposia at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) 30th Annual Meeting and Scientific Session at the Hilton Chicago.