Liver Transplantation News and Research

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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

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

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

Medical center leaders celebrate BRTI's 25th anniversary

Considered a highly risky and controversial medical procedure only 25 years ago, solid organ transplantation is now a life-saving mainstream operation thanks to the extraordinary men and women who gathered at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas on Nov. 11.

24 Nov 2009

Treatment rates for hepatitis C virus declining, say researchers

Researchers from the University of Michigan determined that only 663,000 of the approximately 3.9 million Americans with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection received antiviral therapy between 2002 and 2007.

24 Nov 2009

Antiviral therapy for hepatitis C appears to be declining in the U.S.; lack of diagnosis is primary barrier to treatment

23 Nov 2009

New hope for patients with liver cancer

In patients with unresectable (unable to be removed by surgery) liver cancer, an interventional radiology procedure called triple-drug transcatheter arterial chemoemobolization (TACE) followed by a liver transplant may significantly increase a patient's chance of long-term survival, according to a study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

21 Nov 2009

EDDA Technology recieves CE Mark for its IQQA-Liver advanced clinical application

EDDA Technology today announced the completion of CE mark for its new release of IQQA®-Liver, an advanced clinical application designed to enhance efficiency and precision in liver imaging evaluation and treatment planning.

13 Nov 2009

Transplantation of human mononuclear cells exerts a deleterious effect in rats with liver cirrhosis

The use of stem cells in regenerative medicine is not always beneficial for human health, it may even be harmful according to a work done by the universities of Granada and León. Scientists have demonstrated that transplantation of human mononuclear cells isolated from umbilical cord blood exerted a deleterious effect in rats with liver cirrhosis.

12 Nov 2009

Methacetin breath test predicts long-term survival in patients with chronic viral hepatitis

A methacetin breath test (MBT) that can be performed quickly and noninvasively has been proven to accurately predict survival in patients with viral hepatitis and may be used as an adjunctive tool to MELD.

2 Nov 2009

HCV progresses more rapidly after liver transplantation in African-Americans compared to whites

Previous studies have shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) progresses slower prior to liver transplantation in African Americans than in whites. However, researchers demonstrate in this study, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, that the opposite is true after transplantation, in that recurrent HCV in the transplanted liver progresses faster in African Americans than in whites.

1 Nov 2009

Left side grafting has lower risk to donors; small graft size not the only cause of 'small-for-size graft syndrome'

A recent study by doctors at Shinshu University, School of Medicine, in Japan determined that left side grafting has lower risk to donors compared to grafts taken from the right lobe, and it appears to be the procedure of choice for adult-to-adult living donor liver transplantation (LDLT).

30 Oct 2009