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...lately, I have discovered that I, like the public at large, have been completely misinformed as to what really goes on when organs are donated.

Vincent Liew waited five years for the kidney that was supposed to change his life. Instead, the organ ended it. The kidney came from a woman who had uterine cancer, but she and doctors didn't know it. Once her disease was discovered after the transplant, Liew's doctors highly doubted it could spread to him. But in seven months, Liew was killed by cancer that his autopsy linked to the transplant. His death, the subject of a medical malpractice trial in which closing arguments were scheduled for Thursday, is believed to be the only reported instance of uterine cancer apparently being...

Tampa, Fla. (Feb. 01, 2010) – 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. The results of this study are published in the current double issue of Cell Transplantation (18:10/11) and are freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/ . The study was carried out in the on-going effort to evaluate hepatocyte transplantation as an alternative to liver transplantation, not only because of the...

A liver transplant recipient was given a public intoxication warning Monday afternoon after he registered a 0.39 percent blood-alcohol level, according to La Crosse police reports. The 34-year-old man was found on a curb at Springbrook Way and Cliffside Drive about 3 p.m., reports stated. He could not stand or walk unassisted when a family member took him home, police noted. He was taken to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center for detoxification.

Cynthia Rice told me she wouldn’t want to wish this upon anybody. She was talking about her husband Jim's illness, but could have been talking about ObamaCare.

STOUGHTON — Jordana Bryan traveled over 2,500 miles from Twin Falls, Idaho, to Massachusetts for one, selfless purpose: to donate her kidney to someone she met via the Internet. Bryan, 56, met Charles “Chickie” Hoffman, a 69-year-old electrical contractor from Stoughton, on the Canton-based Web site MatchingDonors.com, a nonprofit organization that connects organ donors with patients in need of transplants. Several months since their initial Internet meeting and dozens of invasive tests later, Thursday morning, Bryan and Hoffman will undergo a kidney transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Bryan, a professional caregiver by trade, is no stranger to the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2009 – Doctors from Walter Reed Army Medical Center here and the University of Miami collaborated to perform the first pancreas islet cell transplant Thanksgiving Day on an airman whose pancreas was injured so severely in Afghanistan that it had to be removed. Army Col. (Dr.) Craig D. Shriver, chief of general surgery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., describes groundbreaking pancreas islet cell transplant surgery performed Nov. 26, 2009, to reporters during a Dec. 15, 2009, news conference. Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, dean of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami,...

Thirteen extremely sick patients. Highly skilled surgeons who performed 26 operations, a quick-thinking organ transplant expert and big-hearted donors. They were all part of a recent record-setting kidney swap in the nation's capital that was part of a major push to get transplants to patients who might not usually qualify. And when it was over, all 13 people had received lifesaving kidneys, the Associated Press reports. So Georgetown University Hospital's kidney transplant director, Dr. Keith Melancon, came up with an unusual option: If both Williams and Irene Otten could get a near- perfect donor kidney (a kidney that just a...

BOSTON (Reuters) – Bone marrow transplants, already used to treat some children with sickle cell disease, also may cure some adults with this deadly genetic defect that causes red blood cells to contort, U.S. scientists said on Wednesday. > Destroying a patient's bone marrow and replacing it with healthy marrow from a donor, often a sibling, is considered too risky for adults. > This approach leaves enough space inside the patient's bones for the donated marrow to find a home and produce enough healthy red blood cells to compensate for the defective ones. >

LANCASTER, Pa. – The mother of the nation's first double hand transplant patient says he's out of the hospital and looking forward to returning to his wife and daughter in Georgia. Doris Schafer told the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era that her son, Jeff Kepner, visited her over the weekend in Lancaster. She says he plans to return to Augusta, Ga., at the end of this week. Schafer says Kepner is considerably happier than when she saw him in June at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, about a month after the transplant. She says her son still has no feeling...

Now, I did a little bit of digging, and here's what I came up with. According to our president: Obama Statement on 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Decision =========="Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it's never been more important to protect a woman's right to choose. Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women's health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at...

They were strangers living in different parts of the world till about three months ago, when terminal liver failure brought them together in Delhi. Now, 18-month-old Nigerian boy Dike and 44-year-old Mumbai resident Priya have become India's first patients to successfully undergo a swap liver transplant surgery. Unable to find suitable donors with a matching blood group for either Dike or Priya, doctors from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital decided to try out a liver swap, much on the lines of a swap kidney transplant, which has now become common. Five months after his birth, doctors diagnosed Dike with Billiary Atresia...

Many may remember that my son's daughter and only child at that time -- was a victim of Acute Myleogenous Leukemia (adult form), diagnosed when she was nine years old. I have been a strong proponent of bone marrow transplants, because Jennifer is living proof of the success of that procedure. This started just over 11 years ago and the transplant did not take place for about three years -- Jennifer had about a 50/50 chance of survival -- which rose and fell over that time. Jennifer is now engaged, an incredibly beautiful young lady and she is pregnant. This...

The story of Corp. Benjamin Kopp's life is one about completely dedicating yourself to your country and others. Kopp, of Rosemount, gave his life serving his country. The 21-year-old died July 18 from injuries he suffered after being shot in the leg in Afghanistan while saving the lives of six of his fellow soldiers on July 10. If giving his life wasn't the ultimate sacrifice, even after his death, Kopp kept on giving. Judy Meikle, of Chicago, says she has been long awaiting a heart transplant. Two weeks ago the 57-year-old got a call from her close friend Maria Burud,...

CLEVELAND (AP) - Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman. Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation's first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror. Culp's expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is...

TORONTO, April 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A two month-old child at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, described in the media as "dying," has defied doctor's predictions and continued to live after the removal of a respirator. The respirator was removed in the expectation that the child would stop breathing, and that her heart could then be harvested for transplant. Her parents have expressed their disappointment that another child who is being cared for at the hospital will now not receive their daughter's heart. ~Snip~ Kaylee Wallace was born with a condition called Joubert Syndrome, which causes a malformation of the...

A leading French surgeon says he has now effectively carried out a full face transplant after two operations in the same number of weeks. Professor Laurent Lantieri, who has performed three of the world's six partial face transplants, said every feature had now been transferred.

I’d like to ask for your help. And it just might help save someone’s life. In 1991, after living with diabetes and its complications for 20 years, I was fortunate to receive a kidney and a pancreas in an organ transplant operation. Since then, I’ve tried to give back wherever I can, in the hopes that it might benefit someone in the future. I am involved in a transplant study that is trying to discover how the body reacts to transplanted organs, and how the use of immunosuppressive drugs can be minimized. But we need more patients in the study...

A Long Island man's quest to end his messy divorce took a new turn this week as he demanded his estranged wife give back the kidney he donated to her in 2001. It's a touching tale and one that has been met with ridicule from area divorce attorneys. "She ripped out his heart, but he doesn't get to rip out her kidney," says Lisa Bloom, a legal analyst for CBS' The Early Show. Calling this a publicity stunt by the scorned husband, Dr. Richard Batista, Bloom says there is absolutely no chance his soon-to-be ex-wife, Dawnell, will have to give...

Two medical breakthroughs reported last week brings very strong evidence for continue research in the stem cell research field. In one case a new airway need to be replaced and the second case knee injuries needed cartilage.