Posted on 09/24/2006 12:10:41 PM PDT by neverdem
A quiet revolution in the world of lung transplants is saving the lives of people who, just two years ago, would have died on the waiting list.
In the past 16 months, waits have shortened, lists have shrunk, and the number of lung transplants has gone up. Further improvements are expected this year.
The changes have all but erased the need for transplants from live donors — desperate, last-ditch operations requiring two donors per patient, usually relatives and friends who risk major surgery in hopes of rescuing a loved one whose time is running out.
“It’s almost as if it’s a whole new day for lung transplantation,” said Dr. Cynthia Herrington, a surgeon at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, in Minneapolis. “It’s amazing.”
Nationwide, it is too soon to tell what the impact of the transplant changes will be.
“Are we actually improving overall survival?” asked Dr. Selim Arcasoy, the medical program director for lung transplantation at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University. “Or are we transplanting sicker people who don’t last as long?”
Transplants are given to people whose lungs fail because of emphysema, cystic fibrosis or other, less common diseases. Since demand exceeds supply, patients must join regional waiting lists that are part of a national network.
Recent changes have revitalized lung transplantation. Starting in May 2005, new rules nationwide put patients who needed transplants most at the top of the list — people who would soon die without a transplant, but who had a good chance of surviving after one.
Previously, lungs went to whoever had been waiting longest, even if another patient needed them more. The waiting time was often two years or more, so there was little hope for people with lung diseases that came on suddenly or progressed rapidly.
Another major change is that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping
*Whew* Thank God for that. Now I can keep smoking. I hate quitting.
*Whew*
Thank God I may have a second chance - (Ex)Smoker of 40 years/emphysema patient.
A second cahnce to smoke? Alright! Technology rules! Believe me, I know where you are coming from. I have emphysema myself, particularly in my right lung which sounds like cellophane snapping when I breath and I`m only 43. I`m not on oxegen (yet - can`t afford it) but believe me, some days it sure as hell would help. Aren`t cigarettes great? Nicotine, the most addictive substance known to man, and smoking, the biggest killer in the world, yet it is legal.
Well, as someone who's husband has 23% of his lungs left after 45 years of smoking I only wish he was young enough to take advantage of this. He has been on oxygen for 10 years and most likely could have been on it earlier.....for those who think smoking is still "cool" think again...sooner or later the effects will hit....and then start thinking back to the old days when you thought of quitting but didn't....regrets hit pretty hard when mentally you are still young but physically feel 100.
STANFORD, Calif. - Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have discovered a way to transplant kidneys without having the patient remain on a lifelong course of immune-suppressing drugs in order to prevent rejection. As an added bonus, the donor kidneys don't even need to come from a relative - a restriction that has severely limited kidney availability to sick people in need.
"Transplantation is a life-saving procedure, but the price is the lifelong use of immune-suppressing drugs," said Samuel Strober, MD, professor of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford School of Medicine and leader of the study. Strober noted that these powerful drugs leave kidney recipients open to infection and increase the risk of heart disease or cancer later in life.
Research results from four patients in the groundbreaking study will be presented April 28 in Washington, DC, at the American Transplant Congress by Maria Millan, MD, transplant surgeon at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and assistant professor of surgery. The work is also scheduled to be published in the journal Transplantation May 15. Organ rejection after transplantation occurs because the immune system scans for foreign cells. If the immune system in the transplant recipient weren't heavily suppressed, it would attack cells in the transplanted organ, leading to rejection.
Strober said the study asks two questions: Can you get patients off the drugs and, if so, for how long? "We feel we can answer yes to the first question," Strober said, adding that so far, two of the four patients in the study are completely free of drugs, with another still tapering off.
This new approach to kidney transplantation began in the usual way, with surgery followed by immune-suppressing drugs, which were needed to prevent organ rejection while the team completed the next step.
After the transplant, the kidney recipient received multiple small doses of radiation targeted to the immune system combined with a drug to reduce the number of cells capable of an immune attack. The team then injected blood stem cells from the kidney donor into the recipient. The stem cells made their way to the recipient's bone marrow where they produced new blood and immune cells that mixed with those of the recipient. After this procedure, the recipient's immune cells recognize the donor's organ as friend rather than foe.
The Stanford team monitored the recipient's new hybrid immune system looking for a mixture of cells from both the recipient and the donor. These cells were tested in the laboratory and did not attack cells taken from the donor. This told the team that the new hybrid immune system would not mount an attack against the transplanted organ. At this time, the team slowly weaned the patient away from the immune-suppressive drugs.
Millan said this study represents the direction in which transplantation will move in the future. In the past, the goal was to have a transplanted organ function in the recipient. Doctors now routinely achieve that goal, and are looking for ways to increase the long-term survival of the transplanted organ while maintaining the recipient's quality of life. "We've topped out on what we can do with drugs," Millan said.
In addition to Strober and Millan, the team consisted of Richard Hoppe, MD, the Henry S. Kaplan-Harry Lebeson professor of radiation oncology; John Scandling, MD, professor of medicine (nephrology); Oscar Salvatierra, professor of surgery and pediatrics; and Judith Shizuru, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (bone marrow transplantation).
Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Stanford University Medical Center for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit Stanford University Medical Center as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/020424072642.htm
Wait till genetic engineering takes off, the stuff that is going to come out of that is going to be absolutely unreal. Imagine you have a bad heart, and using your genetic code they grow you a new one, or bad lungs and they you grow new ones. Probably won`t happen in our lifetime, maybe 100 years from now, but thankfully I`ll be long dead. Having a-holes living 200-300 years or more can only result in absolute hell on earth. I mean think about it; Having any failing body part regenerate can theoretically bring about immortality. Could you take 1000 years of Hillary Clinton? Al Franken? Michael Moore? Actually all of this many never come to pass if Hillary becomes President because the end of the human race will occur if that happens. We`d have terrorists knocking off global cities like popcorn in a pot. "I want my 72 virgins! Use the Clinton supplied nuclear weapon we bought for campaign donation!! Allah Akbar!"
Thanks for the ping.
You might be interested in this site; it gives tons of data on transplants by transplant center, disease, organ, etc.: http://www.optn.org/latestData/stateData.asp?type=center
As one who will (hopefully) be getting a kidney transplant in the near future, that's pretty awesome.
There are anecdotal stories of patients who went off immunosuppressives after a transplant and did not reject, although that's unusual.
Thanks for the link.
FDA Told U.S. Drug System Is Broken
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
I know of no one who has tried this but google "nebulized glutathione".
Holy shiet! Is this stuff for real?? I never heard of it! Read this below... how is this possible?? He got off the 02??
"We chose to try a single trial dose of 2 ml of a 60 mg/ml glutathione solution (prepared by Apothecure Pharmacy, Dallas, TX) nebulized and inhaled over a 5-10 minute period.) Due to the obvious immediate benefit, it was decided to continue this treatment with twice-daily administration and close monitoring by his family of his overall condition. He returned to the office in three days without wheelchair or oxygen tank. He showed no signs of respiratory distress, and no adventitious lung sounds were noted on auscultation. The patient reported his breathing was better than it had been in years. He continued daily treatment with glutathione until his death from congestive heart failure over two years later.
http://www.apothecure.com/patientshtml/glutathione.htm
Another therapy I'm interesting in learning more about is intravenous Vit C.
I'm with you.....same problem and same cause.
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