Transplant News and Research

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"Destination therapy" for end-stage heart failure patients

Federal approval for an alternative therapy to heart transplantation led to a new lease on life for a UT Southwestern Medical Center patient who suffered from heart failure for nearly a decade.

21 Apr 2010

Tips on how to live joyful life with a chronic disease now available in audio version

Award winning speaker and author Lori Hartwell today released a 6-CD unabridged set of her renowned book, Chronically Happy: Joyful Living in Spite of Chronic Illness, which relates her optimism for life despite living with kidney disease for over 40 years.

21 Apr 2010

Alexion Pharmaceuticals completes enrollment in Soliris clinical studies for aHUS

Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that it has completed enrolling patients in all four previously announced prospective, open-label clinical studies investigating Soliris® (eculizumab) as a potential treatment for patients with atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (aHUS) being conducted in North America and multiple European countries.

21 Apr 2010

End-of-life care documentation helps in emergency treatment decisions

When Heather Rubesch was a teenager, her aunt died in need of a kidney transplant. In later family discussions, Heather's mother, Linda, expressed some of her views about end-of-life care—for instance, her belief in organ donation.

19 Apr 2010

Heart transplant patient skis to the North Pole

They made it! In what is believed to be a world-first, a heart transplant patient along with his transplant doctor skied over 100 miles, over ice, snow drifts, across open water, through gale-force winds and freezing temperatures to make it to the North Pole early Thursday morning.

17 Apr 2010

MEDIHONEY dressings effective in treating chronic wounds in children

Chronic, non-healing wounds can be a serious problem for children as many currently available treatment modalities can be too harsh or toxic. At the 2010 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) and the Wound Healing Society (WHS), an international conference drawing clinicians from all over the globe which was held April 17-20 in Orlando, two clinicians presented case series illustrating the benefits of MEDIHONEY® dressings for this challenging patient population.

17 Apr 2010

IMAGE trial results to be presented at International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation meeting

XDx, Inc., a molecular diagnostics company focused on noninvasive tests for the monitoring of immune-mediated conditions, today announced that results from its Invasive Monitoring Attenuation through Gene Expression trial will be presented by Dr. Michael X. Pham, Stanford University Medical Center, during a plenary session at the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation 30th Anniversary Meeting & Scientific Sessions in Chicago this month.

17 Apr 2010

New treatment options for patients with SAH

Results from two French studies presented today at the International Liver CongressTM 2010 press conference will help inform clinical practice in the treatment of patients with severe or acute alcoholic hepatitis.

17 Apr 2010

Treatment with high dose UDCA no more effective for NASH: German study

Results of a German study presented today at the International Liver CongressTM 2010, the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Liver in Vienna, Austria, have shown that overall, treatment with high dose (23-28mg/kg/d) ursodeoxycholic acid is no more effective than placebo in the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, the most advanced form of non-alcoholic liver disease associated with cirrhosis of the liver.

17 Apr 2010

Socioeconomic factors linked to rates and outcomes of stem cell transplantation for AML patients

The socioeconomic status of a country has long been considered a potentially significant factor in the availability of high-quality health-care interventions and even a determinant of long-term patient outcomes. A new study from the Acute Leukemia Working Party of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation reports that in Europe, socioeconomic factors have a direct correlation to the rates and outcomes of stem cell transplantation for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

16 Apr 2010

Alexion Pharmaceuticals' Soliris NDA for PNH receives approval in Japan

Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Alexion Pharma International Sàrl today announced that Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has approved the Company's New Drug Application (NDA) for the use of Soliris® (eculizumab) as a treatment for patients in Japan with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).

16 Apr 2010

Long-term monitoring and education needed to protect lungs of young patients

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have identified childhood cancer survivors who are at increased risk for deteriorating lung health, in part due to the lifesaving bone marrow transplants they underwent years earlier.

16 Apr 2010

LOTS results of Myozyme in older children and adults with Pompe disease published

Genzyme Corp. today announced that the results from its Late-Onset Treatment Study have been published in today's New England Journal of Medicine. The study was undertaken to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Myozyme (alglucosidase alfa) in older children and adults with Pompe disease.

16 Apr 2010

Kidney expert receives international award

Professor Jonathan Craig from the School of Public Health has been honoured for his contribution to the study of kidney disease. The US-based National Kidney Foundation awarded Professor Craig with its 2010 International Distinguished Medal, recognising outstanding accomplishments in the field of nephrology.

16 Apr 2010

Genzyme presents 4-year follow-up data from Phase 2 MS trial at neurology meeting

Genzyme Corporation today reported four-year follow-up data from its completed Phase 2 multiple sclerosis (MS) trial showing an estimated 71 percent of alemtuzumab treated patients remain free of clinically-active disease as much as three years after most patients received their last course of the investigational compound. The data were presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

15 Apr 2010

Interim data from phase IIa clinical trial of IDX184 in HCV-infected patients

Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of human viral diseases, today announced interim data from a 14-day, phase IIa clinical trial evaluating IDX184, a novel liver-targeted nucleotide prodrug of 2'-methyl guanosine monophosphate, in HCV-infected patients.

15 Apr 2010

Loss of lives, hope and trust in the NHS organ donor blunder

In one of the big NHS blunders, nearly 800,000 people who have pledged one or more of their organs for donation may have had their preferences of which organ/s recorded incorrectly for the past 10 years. There are nearly 17 million donors who consent to give all their organs. However some have preferences and withhold consent for some organs like eyes, skin or heart etc. Some had also expressed their wish that their body tissue should not be used in research after their death. This huge error came to public notice in 2009 when the NHS Blood and Transplant started sending out mails to potential donors to check their preferences. Many people wrote back that the information in the records were not right.

13 Apr 2010

Stem cell scientists receive stimulus grants to study lung and blood disorders

Stem cell scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) were awarded stimulus grants totaling almost $2 million to research experimental treatments for blood disorders and inherited lung diseases affecting children.

13 Apr 2010

Genes influence chronic kidney disease risk: Research

A team of researchers from the United States and Europe has identified more than a dozen genes that may play a role in the etiology of common forms of kidney disease. The team, known as the CKDGen Consortium, examined common variations in DNA sequences in more than 65,000 individuals of European descent. Common variations in several genes were found to be more frequent among people with poor kidney function or chronic kidney disease than in those with normal kidney function.

13 Apr 2010