March 24, 2009 — Lung transplantation may be used with caution in patients older than 60 years but should not be used for patients older than 70 years, according to the results of a retrospective study reported in the March issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
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WARREN— Jay Menhennet won’t be making it to the polls today. Instead, he’ll be in surgery receiving a kidney transplant.
It won’t be his first transplant, however.
In February 2000, after experiencing renal failure, Menhennet’s wife, Jenny, donated a kidney to save her husband’s life.
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The intense appeals to save University Medical Center’s kidney transplant program from losing its Medicare funding have overshadowed fundamental patient safety problems revealed by inspectors.
Hospital Chief Executive Kathy Silver acknowledged failures in management of the program, even as she argued that it should remain open.
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Recent years have seen huge advances in transplant medicine, but more research is urgently needed to improve the long-term prospects of transplant patients, according to researchers, doctors and patient representatives at a meeting in Brussels, Belgium organised by the EU-funded TRIE (’Transplantation research integration in Europe’) project.
Approximately 250,000 people in Europe are living with a functional organ transplant and every year some 15,000 kidney transplants, 5,000 liver transplants, 2,000 heart transplants and 1,000 lung transplants as well as thousands of bone-marrow transplants are carried out.
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Kelsey Crider, 19, of Boulder was diagnosed with kidney failure when she was 17.
BOULDER — Twice in one year Kelsey Crider walked out the door, believing she’d never return. Both times, failed kidney transplants sent the Boulder teen back to the dialysis center for treatments.
Three times a week, Kelsey sits in a chair for four hours at the DaVita Boulder Dialysis Center, hooked up to needles and tubes attached to a machine that filters impurities from her blood and removes excess fluid. Sometimes the Front Range Community College student does homework. Other times she reads, talks to her mother or watches television.
“It’s so boring,” said Kelsey, 19, who has had seven surgeries since being diagnosed with medullary cystic kidney disease. “I get antsy.”
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SINGAPORE (AFP) — Singapore plans to amend an organ transplant law early next year so that kidney donors can receive financial compensation, The Sunday Times reported.
Under existing laws, it is illegal for donors to be given cash in return for giving up a kidney.
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WASHINGTON - There could be new hope for people who need organ transplants, but can’t find a matching donor. Read the rest of this entry…
A local woman was able to donate a kidney to her sister — even though their blood types did not match.
CINCINNATI, Oct. 22 (UPI) — U.S. researchers say the use of modern immunosuppressive drugs eliminates the need for steroid therapy as early as seven days following a kidney transplant.
Dr. Steve Woodle of the University of Cincinnati, who led the study, said elimination of a daily dose of steroids following transplantation minimizes chronic health conditions common to kidney transplant recipients.
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When Barbara, a retired school library administrator, received a healthy kidney from her sister in October of 2004, and then a pancreas from a cadaver donor three months later, a new chapter in her life began.
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MaryBeth Mullen, left, donated her kidney to sister Barbara Cullen in the first kidney transplant at Georgetown University Hospital in which the donor's and recipient's blood types didn't match. (By Naomi Brookner -- The Gazette)
Cullen scaled back her hours at L’Academie de Cuisine culinary institute in Gaithersburg when she developed an infection, and a January stroke made her question whether she would ever go back to her job.
“I went to work and didn’t feel good, came home and didn’t feel good,” said Cullen, 58, of Silver Spring. “I did dialysis at home every night; I was tethered to the house.”
But after receiving a rare “incompatible” kidney transplant from her sister Sept. 18, the first procedure of its kind performed at Georgetown University Hospital, Cullen has regained her appetite and expects to return to work by the end of the year.
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