Dr. Deepali Kumar (University of Toronto, Director Transplant at University Health Network) was reflecting on his outgoing year as president of the American Society of Transplantation. Basically, despite all the improvements made over the past 70 or so years, we still have a limited organ supply that restricts the best long term outcomes.
Continue reading Two Months until we know the outcome between UNOS and Buckeye
As I suspected, the altercation between Buckeye Transplant Services and UNOS is not going to be settled easily.
Continue reading Transplant Battle for Control Continues
Oh, UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) what are we doing now?
Continue reading Stop the Transplants?
Hmm. The policy (ok, the law) of this land is that it is illegal to pay another human being to induce them to donate a kidney to you or to a loved one. That actually is a good idea, because otherwise not only would there be bidding wars for organs, but only the richer among us could probably arrange for transplants.
Continue reading A concrete way to improve renal transplants
It gives me a great feeling when nephrologists and other medical professionals are recognizing that we are not properly educating our kidney failure (ESRD- those with End Stage Renal Disease) patients about all the options they may have.
Continue reading Increase the Number of Kidney Transplants
The Uniform Law Commission, also known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, has been around for some130 years. The goal is to help each state adopt well-conceived and non-partisan legislation to render statutory law be clear and stable.
Continue reading Organ Donation Issues
You know I talk about dialysis a lot. And, advocate that stem cell research should be allowed.
Not only could we provide an unlimited set of kidneys for transplant, but hearts, lungs, and a slew of other organs. But, stem cell research is disallowed due to politics (read: religious group lobbying).
Continue reading Donate a kidney?
The leading cause of death- still- is cardiovascular disease (CVD). And, when CVD is severe, the treatment of choice is a heart transplant. Not surprisingly, these are not always available- so the wait- assuming one gets on the list- can be 6 months, a year, or even longer. In the US that means that 1/6 of those on the list die before ever moving up to #1 on the list.
Continue reading 3D Bioprinting
We discussed late last year how the injection of stem cells seems to help heart patients recover. Not because the stem cells are growing and rebuilding the heart. No, they are helping because they are stimulating an immune response that helps the heart recover.
Continue reading MSC to the rescue?
The other shoe dropped?
A few months ago, I reported that a feeling I had for years is now backed up by data. I’m talking about the Dr. Erickson et. al. study which demonstrated that when chains take over independent dialysis clinics, patient care is compromised. In particular, patient mortality and hospitalization rates were worse after the merger.
Continue reading Where we get treatment matters?