Transplant

Sydney: The days of heart transplant survivors undergoing invasive biopsies could soon be over after a new MRI technique has proven to be safe and effective, reducing complications and hospital admissions.Scientists at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, hope the new virtual biopsy designed to detect any signs of the heart being rejected will be adopted by clinicians the world over.Approximately 3,500 people worldwide receive heart transplants each year. Most patients experience…

Photo: sebra (Shutterstock)A man in the UK appears to be the first person to have gotten a double-hand transplant for his particular condition, known as scleroderma. Five months after the surgery, the patient and his new limbs are reportedly doing just fine.According to the BBC, 48-year-old Steven Gallagher developed the first signs of his scleroderma, a rare autoimmune disease that slowly tightens and scars the skin and other parts of the body, more than a decade ago. By his 40s, the condition had caused his hands to…

Being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes today means a lifetime of insulin injections – as of yet, we don't have a simple one-time fix on hand.To date, each breakthrough promising a diabetes cure has encountered significant hurdles, making it not viable for the vast majority of people. Now, researchers in the US have improved upon one type of transplant-based treatment, potentially giving hope to the 9 million people around the world with this condition.  "The immune system is a tightly controlled defense mechanism that…

NEW DELHI : The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) plans to set up centres for advanced research for bone marrow transplant (BMT) in government hospitals across India. The apex medical research institute is of the view that BMT is a high-end procedure done for critically ill patients and the majority of centres are in the private sector thus limiting access of treatment to the poor. ICMR plans to support the medical institutions in setting up state-of-the-art…

A Maryland man who lived with a transplanted, genetically-modified pig's heart for two months may have died due to a virus that targets feral animals, The New York Times reported Thursday.  Dr. Bartley Griffith, a surgeon focused on transplants at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, performed the animal-to-human surgery on the patient, David Bennett Sr., and also reported the complication as the patient's health torpedoed.The procedure initially had been deemed a success. It took place in January 2022, after…

A preventable infection by a porcine virus might have contributed to the death of the first patient to have a heart transplant with a pig organ, MIT Technology Review reported this week. David Bennett Sr, who had severe heart disease, received a genetically modified pig heart in early January of this year — a major milestone in animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation. He died in March. Initially, the hospital where the procedure was performed said that the cause of death was unknown. But last month,…

A US patient with leukaemia has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday.The case of a middle-aged woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people.Since receiving the cord…