Organ Donation News and Research

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FDA scrutinise companies selling human tissue

Following an inspection blitz by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on companies which handle a variety of human material from deceased donors, no serious problems have apparently been unearthed.

13 Jun 2007

Increasing survival of organ transplant patients by reducing time interval for transported organs

Preservation of an organ intended for transplant during transport from donor to recipient is of primary concern in ensuring a successful transplant.

27 Apr 2007

Scientists gain insights into liver regeneration

The way the liver renews itself may be simpler than what scientists had been assuming.

12 Apr 2007

OHSU surgeon implants donated tissue allografts

Over the years, orthopedic surgeon Dennis Crawford, M.D., Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University found it difficult to obtain tissue for transplant to treat some of his patients suffering with severe joint disorders.

11 Apr 2007

Blueprint for cell, tissue and organ donation and transplantation

This week, at the second Global Consultation on Transplantation the World Health Organization (WHO) presented countries and other stakeholders with a blueprint for updated global guiding principles on cell, tissue and organ donation and transplantation.

30 Mar 2007

House passes bill that would allow 'paired' kidney donations

The House on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation (HR 710) to specify that "paired" kidney donations do not violate laws prohibiting compensation for organ donations, the AP/Long Island Newsday reports.

11 Mar 2007

People who donate a kidney to help someone else often suffer financially to do so

Living organ donors, through their altruistic act to improve the health of others, may experience substantial economic losses in a variety of cost categories.

24 Jul 2006

New study sets out to find why people don't donate organs

Researchers are looking for volunteers to take part in a new study to find out why there is a shortage of organ donations in the UK.

12 Jul 2006

Potential for organ donation in the United Kingdom

The biggest obstacle to improving the organ donation rate in the United Kingdom is the number of relatives who refuse consent, say researchers in this week's British Medical Journal.

11 May 2006

Transplanting a pair of kidneys with limited function into one patient may offer one solution to short supply of donated kidneys

Transplanting a pair of kidneys with limited function into one patient can be just as successful as the standard procedure in which a patient receives a single kidney, according to new research at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

13 Mar 2006

Donor rates in New Zealand hit an all time low

In a rather worrying trend it seems that figures recently released show that New Zealand has hit an all time low in the number of organ donors it has.

16 Jan 2006

French woman has worlds' first face transplant

The operation apparently lasted several hours where tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face.

30 Nov 2005

New tool to measure coma depth

Mayo Clinic neurologists have created the first new, reliable and easy-to-use clinical tool in 30 years for measuring coma depth, a proposed replacement for the Glasgow Coma Scale. The new scoring system, called the FOUR (Full Outline of UnResponsiveness) Score, will be described in the October issue of Annals of Neurology.

10 Sep 2005

New skin from fetal cells great success in children with burns

Swiss researchers have used skin constructed from fetal skin cells to treat eight children with burns.

21 Aug 2005

Study shows using expanded critera donors is safe

Patients who had received livers from hepatitis B virus core antibody (HBcAb) positive (indicates prior exposure to hepatitis B) and/or hepatitis C virus (HCV) positive donors had similar graft and patient survival compared to patients who received HBcAb negative or HCV negative livers, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh's Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.

25 May 2005

Six deaths in transplant patients now linked to rodent virus

In the latest news on the subject, experts now believe they can link at least six deaths of organ transplant patients to a rodent virus, which raises questions about whether others may have gone undetected and whether the germ also could spread through blood transfusions.

24 May 2005

Virus from rodents kills three transplant recipients

Three transplant patients have died as a result of receiving an organ from a donor who had unknowingly been infected with a common rodent virus. A fourth patient who received a kidney from the organ donor is recovering.

24 May 2005

New technology and treatments for heart and lung patients drive revisions

The process for prioritizing heart and lung transplant candidates and determining the treatments they receive while awaiting donor organs is under review by the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) during its Annual Meeting and Scientific Session this week in Philadelphia.

7 Apr 2005

You can no longer make the argument that transplanting a kidney into an older recipient is a wasted organ

Growing evidence suggests that age alone shouldn't prevent older adults from being organ donors – or having a kidney transplant themselves – according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

14 Mar 2005

The ethics of face transplants

The ethics of face transplants is among the issues to be discussed at the World Congress of Bioethics, which will be hosted by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) next week.

4 Nov 2004