			Home About us Contact

Organ Recipients (organ + recipient)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	100%

Kinds of Organ Recipients

solid organ recipient

Selected Abstracts

How Safe Is It to Transplant Organs from Deceased Donors with Primary Intracranial Malignancy?

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 6 2010
An Analysis of UK Registry Data
Patients dying from primary intracranial malignancy are a potential source of organs for transplantation. However, a perceived risk of tumor transfer to the organ recipient has limited their use. We evaluated the risk of tumor transmission by reviewing the incidence in patients transplanted in the UK. Information from the UK Transplant Registry was combined with that from the national cancer registries of England, Wales and Northern Ireland to identify all organ donors between 1985 and 2001 inclusive with a primary intracranial malignancy and to identify the occurrence of posttransplant malignancy in the recipients of the organs transplanted. Of 11 799 organ donors in the study period, 179 were identified as having had a primary intracranial malignancy, including 33 with high-grade malignancy (24 grade IV gliomas and 9 medulloblastomas). A total of 448 recipients of 495 organs from 177 of these donors were identified. No transmission of donor intracranial malignancy occurred. Organs from patients dying from primary intracranial malignancy, including those with high-grade tumors, should be considered for transplantation and the small risk of tumor transmission should be balanced against the likely mortality for potential recipients who remain on the transplant waiting list. [source]

Immune cell function testing: an adjunct to therapeutic drug monitoring in transplant patient management

CLINICAL TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 2 2003
Richard Kowalski
Abstract:, Each year, 55 000 organ transplants are performed worldwide. Cumulatively, the number of living organ recipients is now estimated to be over 300 000. Most of these transplant recipients will remain on immunosuppressive drugs for the remainder of their lives to prevent rejection episodes. Controlled doses of these drugs are required to prevent over-medication, which may leave the patient susceptible to opportunistic infection and drug toxicity effects, or under-dosing, which may lead to shortened graft survival because of rejection episodes. This paper describes the result of a multicenter study conducted at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Alabama and Maryland to evaluate an in vitro assay (CylexTM Immune Cell Function Assay) for the measurement of global immune response in transplant patients receiving immunosuppressive therapy. The assay uses a whole blood sample to maintain the presence of the drug during incubation. Following overnight incubation of blood with phytohemagglutinin (PHA), CD4 cells are selected using paramagnetic particles coated with a monoclonal antibody to the CD4 epitope. The CD4-positive cells are targeted as major immunosuppressive drugs are designed to specifically inhibit T-cell activation which has been implicated in rejection. The data generated at these three sites were submitted in support of an Food and Drug Association (FDA) application for the use of this assay in the detection of cell-mediated immunity in an immunosuppressed population. The assay was cleared by the FDA on April 2, 2002. This cross-sectional study was designed to establish ranges for reactivity of this bioassay in the assessment of functional immunity for an individual solid organ recipient at any point in time. [source]

Themes of liver transplantation,

HEPATOLOGY, Issue 6 2010
Thomas E. Starzl
Liver transplantation was the product of five interlocking themes. These began in 1958-1959 with canine studies of then theoretical hepatotrophic molecules in portal venous blood (Theme I) and with the contemporaneous parallel development of liver and multivisceral transplant models (Theme II). Further Theme I investigations showed that insulin was the principal, although not the only, portal hepatotrophic factor. In addition to resolving long-standing controversies about the pathophysiology of portacaval shunt, the hepatotrophic studies blazed new trails in the regulation of liver size, function, and regeneration. They also targeted inborn metabolic errors (e.g., familial hyperlipoproteinemia) whose palliation by portal diversion presaged definitive correction with liver replacement. Clinical use of the Theme II transplant models depended on multiple drug immunosuppression (Theme III, Immunology), guided by an empirical algorithm of pattern recognition and therapeutic response. Successful liver replacement was first accomplished in 1967 with azathioprine, prednisone, and antilymphoid globulin. With this regimen, the world's longest surviving liver recipient is now 40 years postoperative. Incremental improvements in survival outcome occurred (Theme IV) when azathioprine was replaced by cyclosporine (1979), which was replaced in turn by tacrolimus (1989). However, the biologic meaning of alloengraftment remained enigmatic until multilineage donor leukocyte microchimerism was discovered in 1992 in long-surviving organ recipients. Seminal mechanisms were then identified (clonal exhaustion-deletion and immune ignorance) that linked organ engraftment and the acquired tolerance of bone marrow transplantation and eventually clarified the relationship of transplantation immunology to the immunology of infections, neoplasms, and autoimmune disorders. With this insight, better strategies of immunosuppression have evolved. As liver and other kinds of organ transplantation became accepted as healthcare standards, the ethical, legal, equity, and the other humanism issues of Theme V have been resolved less conclusively than the medical-scientific problems of Themes I-IV. HEPATOLOGY 2010 [source]

Hepatitis B virus variants in patients receiving lamivudine treatment with breakthrough hepatitis evaluated by serial viral loads and full-length viral sequences

HEPATOLOGY, Issue 3 2001
Chun-Jen Liu
Both viral loads and genome variations have been implicated in the pathogenesis of acute exacerbation of chronic hepatitis B. Hepatitis B exacerbation in patients receiving lamivudine treatment represented a unique setting to clarify their importance. Three organ recipients with posttransplantation hepatitis B exacerbation and 3 patients with chronic hepatitis B were studied. All received lamivudine treatment and their alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels and hepatitis B virus (HBV) loads were regularly followed. Full-length genomic sequences before and during lamivudine treatment were determined in patients who had breakthrough of serum HBV DNA or elevation of serum ALT. Breakthrough of serum HBV DNA occurred after 6 to 15 months of lamivudine treatment in all. A rapid increase of viral load accompanying the emergence of tyrosine-methionine-aspartate-aspartate (YMDD) variant was followed by hepatitis B exacerbation in each patient. The mean number of nucleotide and amino acid substitutions per genome pair was equivalent in immunosuppressed or immunocompetent patients (6.3 vs. 6.3 for nucleotide, P > .05; 6.0 vs. 6.7 for amino acid, P > .05). Changes of nucleotide and amino acid beyond the YMDD motif were distributed along the whole HBV genome but none occurred within the known B-cell epitopes and human leukocyte antigen class I, or II,restricted T-cell epitopes. Our results suggest that a resurgence of viral load rather than changes of the known immunogenic viral epitopes is more closely associated with the development of hepatitis B exacerbation after the emergence of YMDD variants in patients receiving lamivudine treatment. (HEPATOLOGY 2001;34:583-589.) [source]

De novo breast cancer in patients with liver transplantation: University of Pittsburgh's experience and review of the literature

LIVER TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 1 2004
M.Tahir Oruc
De novo malignancies are one of the current problems in patients with organ transplantation. The incidence has been considered to be higher as a result of increases of oncogenic viruses in immunosuppressed organ recipients. Published reports have shown increased incidence of de novo tumors such as malignant lymphomas and cutaneous neoplasms but decreased incidence of breast cancer. A variety of factors affect de novo breast cancer development in organ recipients, including immunosuppression, viruses, and underlying disease. The aims of this review are to evaluate the incidence and management of patients with de novo breast cancer by giving the University of Pittsburgh's data, and to evaluate the incidence of de novo breast cancer in published reports in light of an age-adjusted rate. According to age-adjusted rates presented by the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results data, we found increased incidence rate of de novo breast cancer in the previously published series. The University of Pittsburgh's incidence rate of de novo breast cancer was determined in a fashion similar to that for the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results data. Eighty-three percent of all patients were diagnosed at early stages, and it appeared to take longer for de novo breast cancer to develop in patients treated with tacrolimus than in patients treated with cyclosporine. In conclusion, surgical treatment of breast cancer in liver recipients is the same as treatment of breast cancer in patients without transplantation. However, the effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and/or tamoxifen remain unclear in transplanted patients and need to be evaluated in larger studies. (Liver Transpl 2004;10:1,6.) [source]

Impact of donor infections on outcome of orthotopic liver transplantation

LIVER TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 5 2003
Michael Angelis
Infection occurs when microbial agents enter the host, either through airborne transmission or by direct contact of a substance carrying the infectious agent with the host. Human body fluids, solid organs, or other tissues often are ideal vectors to support microbial agents and can transmit infections efficiently from donor to recipient. In the case of blood transfusion and tissue transplantation, the main consequence of such a transmission is infection of the recipient. However, in the case of solid-organ transplantation, and particularly for liver transplantation, donor infections are not only transmitted to the recipient, the donor infection also may affect the donated liver's preservability and subsequent function in the recipient irrespective of the systemic consequences of the infection. In addition, solid organ recipients of infected organs are less able to respond to the infectious agent because of their immunosuppressive treatment. Thus, transmission of infections from organ donor to liver recipient represents serious potential risks that must be weighed against a candidate's mortality risk without the transplant. However, the ever-increasing gap between the number of donors and those waiting for liver grafts makes consideration of every potential donor, regardless of the infection status, essential to minimize waiting list mortality. In this review, we will focus on assessing the risk of transmission of bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic infectious agents from cadaveric liver donors to recipients and the effect such a transmission has on liver function, morbidity, and mortality. We will also discuss risk-benefit deliberations for using organs from infected donors for certain types of recipients. These issues are critically important to maximize the use of donated organs but also minimize recipient morbidity and graft dysfunction. [source]

Psychosocial functioning of pediatric renal and liver transplant recipients

PEDIATRIC TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 5 2008
Yelena P. Wu
Abstract:, The current study examined child- and parent-reported child psychosocial functioning in a large sample of children who received solid organ transplantation. Participants included 64 children who received kidney or liver transplantation and 64 parents who completed a standardized measure of children's psychosocial functioning (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992). Although post-transplant children reported significantly fewer psychosocial difficulties than the normative average, parents reported that children had some psychosocial difficulties, particularly internalizing problems. There were no differences in psychosocial functioning between deceased donor organ and living donor organ recipients. Given the discrepancy between parent and child report, the results suggest that children may underreport psychosocial difficulties following transplantation or parents may over-report children's difficulties. Clinicians and researchers are encouraged to obtain assessment information from multiple reporters when assessing psychosocial functioning in this population. [source]

Tissue HHV6 and 7 determination in pediatric solid organ recipients , a pilot study

PEDIATRIC TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 6 2003
M. Gupta
Abstract:, Herpes virus infections remain a major challenge in solid organ transplantation. HHV6 and 7 blood viral load was associated with pathology after renal transplantation. Little is known about the significance of tissue HHV6 and 7 infections. A total of 18 tissue biopsies (13 kidney, three GI and two BAL) from nine pediatric transplant patients (five kidney, two liver, one combined liver and kidney and one bone marrow transplant) were subjected to blood HHV6 IgG and IgM testing. In addition, tissue HHV6 and 7 semi-quantitative PCR analysis with subsequent detection by ELISA and quantitative methods were applied to the same samples. We also studied four native kidney biopsies of children with other kidney disease. The results of the biopsies were correlated with clinical data. Of the transplant patients, 78% were HHV6 IgG positive. Six of nine had a positive IgM on at least one occasion, however, only two of nine transplant patients were symptomatic with a mixed CMV/EBV septic picture of multi-organ failure. Only these two patients had a significant tissue viral load for HHV6. Additionally, a very significant tissue viral load for HHV6 was detected in an immunocompromised patient 3 wk after a roseola-like febrile illness. The HHV6 copies were 31, 88 and 206 per 10 ,L of DNA, respectively. In the patient who also had the fourth positive ELISA for HHV6 PCR product, the Multiplex PCR and restriction enzyme assay on its PCR product revealed a significant contribution by HHV7, while the HHV6-B signal was rather weak. Significant tissue HHV6 loads can be found in tissue biopsies from organ recipients with significant illness and also in native kidneys after primary infection. This may explain the high prevalence of HHV6 in transplanted kidneys. Further studies on HHV6 and 7 using molecular techniques should be supported. [source]

Cholelithiasis in pediatric organ transplantation: Detection and management

PEDIATRIC TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 2 2002
Rainer Ganschow
Abstract: The real incidence and the underlying causes of cholelithiasis in pediatric solid organ recipients is probably not exactly known. In addition to well-established risk factors for cholelithiasis, children after heart, kidney, or liver transplantation may develop gallstones due to drug therapy, sepsis, parenteral nutrition, or surgical complications. For pediatric patients, data are very limited and heterogeneous. However, the incidence in pediatric heart recipients seems to be substantially higher compared with kidney or liver graft recipients. In this review article the present data are discussed focusing on incidence, detection, and management of cholelithiasis in pediatric organ transplantation. In general, surgery is the therapy of choice in symptomatic patients; however, the pharmacological profile of ursodeoxycholic acid and the first results on its clinical impact are promising. The value of prophylactic therapy with ursodeoxycholic acid must be determined in further studies. [source]

Extended Survival by Urgent Liver Retransplantation after Using a First Graft with Metastasis from Initially Unrecognized Donor Sarcoma

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 6 2005
Jorge A. Ortiz
A 58-year-old man underwent orthotopic liver transplantation for polycystic liver disease. Shortly after the procedure, it was discovered that the donor harbored a sarcoma of the aortic arch that had metastasized to the spleen, and bilateral renal cell carcinomas. The two sole organ recipients, our liver recipient and a lung recipient at another institution, were both listed for urgent retransplantation, which they received from the same second donor. The liver explant contained metastatic sarcoma. Twenty-four months survival following lung retransplantation has been previously reported. We report the 76-month disease-free survival in the liver recipient. [source]

Sirolimus-induced signaling modifications in Kaposi's sarcoma with resolution in a liver transplant recipient

CLINICAL TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 1 2010
Cheng-Maw Ho
Ho C-M, Huang S-F, Hu R-H, Ho M-C, Wu Y-M, Lee P-H. Sirolimus-induced signaling modifications in Kaposi's sarcoma with resolution in a liver transplant recipient. Clin Transplant 2010: 24: 127,132. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Abstract:, Sirolimus is one treatment option in transplant recipients with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), which involves dysregulation of Akt-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. Signal modifications after sirolimus therapy in organ recipients with KS are largely unknown and not verified. We reported a case of KS found two yr after liver transplantation in which the immunosuppression was changed from tacrolimus, MMF, and steroid to sirolimus alone. In skin, which was found to have persistent KS after a two-month treatment of sirolimus and was removed completely one yr later, KS was no longer present. The patient went well without graft rejection. Tumor biopsies were performed before, two months, and one yr after the start of sirolimus. Immunohistochemical staining of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), p-Akt, p-mTOR, p-p70 S6 kinase, and Western blot for p-tuberin/ tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC)2 was performed. VEGF was suppressed thoroughly in two-month use of sirolimus. In addition, p-Akt and p-mTOR, which were decreased at two months, could not be detected after one yr of treatment. Moreover, p-p70 S6 kinase, expressed strongly in overlying epidermis initially, was suppressed completely after two months of treatment. However, p-tuberin/TSC2, contrary to suggested theoretically, was not detected through all specimens, implying not to be a significant event. Suppressed expression of VEGF, p-Akt, and p-mTOR was the major event of signaling modification through the long-term use of sirolimus. [source]