A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigation of the websites of liver transplant centers in the U.S. found that the vast majority of them use stigmatizing language on their websites. The language that is being used are words such as “alcoholism,” “alcoholic,” or “alcohol abuse,” which could potentially discourage the willingness…

Research led by Rutgers University in New Jersey shows that high levels of a specific serum protein in the blood can predict whether someone with acetaminophen-induced acute liver failure will need a transplant or have a poor outcome. Writing in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Bishr Omary, Henry Rutgers…

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Surgery is the first in North America to demonstrate that living-donor liver transplant is a viable option for patients who have systemically controlled colorectal cancer and liver tumors that cannot be surgically removed. “This study proves that transplant is…

A recently-discovered genomic signature for predicting acute rejection in liver transplant (LT) recipients will be detailed May 2, during a presentation at the American Transplant Congress (ATC) in Chicago. Josh Levitsky, M.D., professor of medicine (gastroenterology, hepatology) and surgery (organ transplantation) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, will present results from…

A study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) shows women with hepatocellular carcinoma are less likely to receive a liver transplant than men with the same condition. Women with this kind of cancer were also more likely to die or be taken off the organ transplant list due to health…

New findings from a study lead by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have described a pathway that protects the liver from injury during transplantation. The protein, called CEACAM1, helps protect the organ when blood supply is returned to the organ during transplantation reducing inflammation and tissue…

Mount Sinai researchers have shown that shrinking liver tumors to a size that allows the patient to qualify for liver transplant results in excellent 10-year outcomes, validating current US policies for transplant eligibility. Parissa Tabrizian, Associate Professor of Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and colleagues…

A 25-year old woman has become the first person to be treated for type 1 diabetes using cells extracted from her own body—an allogeneic transplant. She started producing her own insulin less than three months after receiving a transplant of reprogrammed stem cells. In a notable change from standard practice.…

New research from investigators at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center may have uncovered a method to further protect heart transplant patients and lower the rate of rejection by providing patients with an anti-inflammatory antibody prior to surgery. The results of the team’s mouse study, published in the journal PNAS, focused…

A phase I clinical trial at Stanford Medicine has found that a new CAR-T cell therapy that targets a different protein—CD22—from the original therapy significantly improved patients’ outcomes. Over half of 38 people enrolled in the trial—37 of whom had already relapsed from the original CAR-T therapy—experienced a complete response…

An unhealthy balance of gut microbes is associated with an elevated risk of death among people who have received a donor organ, study findings suggest. The findings contribute to understanding the relationship between the gut microbiome and long-term health. Specifically, the study showed a heightened risk of death from cancer…

Many patients who receive hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for blood cancer suffer from stress related to their treatments. Now, a new phone-based positive psychology program called Positive Affect for the Transplantation of Hematopoietic stem cells intervention (PATH), has shown that it can alleviate the stress these patients experience as…

Researchers have developed a model to evaluate gene therapy using a whole human liver, which could help create novel viral vectors for next-generation treatments. The development of the human liver ex situ normothermic perfusion model broadens the repertoire of preclinical models available to assess tools for delivering gene therapies. It…

Vaccines such as the combined measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) shot and the vaccine against the chicken pox varicella-zoster virus (VZV) are safe and generate a good immune response in children with liver and/or kidney transplants, shows research led by the Children’s Hospital Colorado. “This shifts the paradigm of the approach to protecting…

Research led by investigators at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine has revealed new, specific biomarkers of kidney transplant rejection. These specific cellular signals, revealed by single-cell analysis represent new therapeutic and diagnostic targets to improve care for the roughly 10% of patients…