Trans

Transdermal HRT not cardioprotective in postmenopausal women with CAD

Transdermal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not reduce the risk of cardiac events in postmenopausal women with existing coronary artery disease (CAD). In the PHASE trial (Papworth HRT Atherosclerosis Study), researchers randomized 255 postmenopausal women with angiographically proven coronary artery disease to receive either transdermal HRT--17-beta-estradiol with or without cy...

Transdermal HRT not cardioprotective in postmenopausal women with Coronary Artery Disease

Transdermal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not reduce the risk of cardiac events in postmenopausal women with existing coronary artery disease (CAD). In the PHASE trial (Papworth HRT Atherosclerosis Study), researchers randomized 255 postmenopausal women with angiographically proven coronary artery disease to receive either transdermal HRT--17-beta-estradiol with or without cy...

Infant receives first bloodless liver transplant

An Iowa infant aged 7 months was the first recipient of a bloodless liver transplant in Los Angeles, the United States of America. The seven month old, Aiden Michael Rush, whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses are prohibited by their religion to receive transfusions. The boy received 20% of his mother’s liver during the transplantation on February 7th at the children’s hospital i...

Liver donors can thrive after transplant

Contrary to belief that donating liver can injure the donor, it is now established without doubt that a living person can donate a part of his liver to a person needing it. And the good news is that the donor would continue to live well and thrive after donating part of his/her liver. Donation of a piece of the liver's right lobe from one adult to another is a relatively new procedure. I...

ATG useful in transplant patients as substitute for steroids

Anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG), a compound made from rabbit antibodies appears to be as effective as routine steroids in reducing rejection of transplanted organs without any of the side effects, according to Dr. James Eason of the Ochsner Multi-Organ Transplant Center in New Orleans. In the largest study on steroid-free treatment of liver transplants, Dr. Eason found patients treated with ATG had...

Focus on DNA transcription

Biological chemists at the University of north Carolina at Chapel Hill, state about the discovery of how living organisms convert genetic instructions into action. The UNC scientists have found a previously unknown chemical site on a key enzyme that regulates production of the genetic messenger known as RNA. When the chemical site is occupied, it markedly speeds up the// proces...

Blood transfusions beneficial after heart attacks

Doctors can save the lives of many elderly heart attack victims by quickly giving blood transfusions to those who have even mild anemia, a U.S. study found. Researchers said this advice, if widely adopted, could save thousands of people each year. Taking care of anemia is probably as important as giving aspirin, beta blockers or clot-dissolving drugs, which are already standard care for heart att...

Stem cell transplantation of eye

In a significant breakthrough, a team of scientists have successfully transplanted cultured stem cells from the healthy eye to the diseased one, bringing light to the people who nearly lost their sight in accidents. Sustaining the current excitement about stem cells, in all 33 patients who suffered from conditions such as chemical burns, allergic reactions to drug and auto-immune diseases cau...

Woman gets cancer from transplanted kidney

For a person with failing kidneys, receiving a transplanted kidney can be a lifesaver. But in rare cases, the transplanted organ may pass on cancer to the recipient. Wisconsin researchers report that a transplant recipient whose donor had previously had lung cancer developed cancer herself several years after her transplant. // The woman has made a full recovery, but her case unders...

Parasite infections linked to organ transplants

Three transplant patients contracted a dangerous parasitic disease from their new organs in the United States.Two of the three women died, but only one recovered after antibiotic treatment.// A second study also released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention turned up 26 bacterial infections traced to tissue grafts that had come from cadavers in the United States. This show...

Vitamins enhances recuperation of organ transplant patients

Including vitamins C and E detains the progress of a catastrophic conditions in organ transplant patients, Doctor's suggest. About 62% of patients who undergo heart transplants develop hardened arteries, a condition// called arteriosclerosis, in the first three years after their surgery. A team from the Maryland's Women's Hospital, USA, found the condition was emanted among patients...

Vitamins suppress artery injury after transplant

According to a new study, Vitamin C and E supplements protect the coronary arteries from narrowing after heart transplant. Heart transplantation can be a life-saver// but, the vessels linking the new heart let the patient down by becoming blocked. If only a way could be found of blocking this process known clinically as arteriosclerosis. Now doctors at The Hopkins Hospital in Boston, US, believe...

Liver transplant oversight urged

Concerned about the increasing number of partial-liver transplants from living donors, some doctors are proposing an external regulator be appointed to certify hospital units to do the surgery.// According to a survey conducted at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, which was woefully inadequate post-surgical care, when a 57-year-old man died after donating 50 percent of his liver to his brothe...

Stem Cell Transplants May Be Effective For MS Patients

There’s a potential new treatment for people with severe cases of multiple sclerosis, according to a new research. The new treatment involves removing stem cells// from the patients’ blood, killing the cells that are working against the body’s immune system and then returning the healthy cells back to the body. The hope is that these stem cells will eventually reconstitute into healthy immune sys...

Cell transplants used to fend off Parkinson's symptoms

Doctors report they have had long-term success implanting cells into the brains of Parkinson's disease patients by passing a needle through the skull. Dr. Ray Watts, professor of //neurology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, told that patients had improved motor function - movement of their arms and legs - by up to 60% using this procedure. Watts implanted retinal pigm...

Blood transfusion linked to lung ailment

The government and researchers are warning that blood transfusions can cause a serious and often-unrecognized lung problem that has been linked to more than 50 deaths// nationwide since 1990. About 8 million people donate blood and about 4.5 million patients receive transfusions each year. Testing for the antibodies in donated blood is difficult and not part of routine screening of the nation's b...

Transforming stem cells to lung cells

The functioning of stem cells has an outstanding nature. Initially, the mouse stem cells have been transformed into fully-functioning lung cells, promising repair of damaged lung tissue. The potential of stem cells - primitive cells that can be turned into more specialised cells - is now well established.// Researchers at the Imperial College Tissue Engineering and now report on the first creatio...

DNA transcription to be focused

Biological chemists at the University of north Carolina at Chapel Hill, state about the discovery of how living organisms convert genetic instructions into action. The UNC scientists have found a previously unknown chemical site on a key enzyme that regulates production of the genetic messenger known as RNA.// When the chemical site is occupied, it markedly speeds up the process by...

Stem cell transplantation of eye

In a significant breakthrough, a team of scientists have successfully transplanted cultured stem cells from the healthy eye to the diseased one, bringing light to the people who nearly lost their sight in accidents.Sustaining the current excitement about stem cells, in all 33 patients who suffered from conditions such as chemical burns, allergic reactions// to drug and auto-immune diseases causin...

Bone marrow transplants for limbs

Scientists have observed that bone marrow cells can make new blood vessels, when transplanted into limbs with poor circulation. In peripheral arterial disease, circulation in the legs is severely restricted because the arteries are narrowed. //The result is pain and disability. In severe cases, the limb may even need amputation to avoid gangrene and death. Researchers in Osaka, Japan,...

Thawed Ovarian Transplant

When a woman is diagnosed with cancer, she often has to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy. This treatment can cause the ovaries to stop functioning // and leave the patient infertile. But doctors around the world have been working on ways to remove, freeze and restore a woman’s ovarian tissue. New advancement in the use of frozen ovarian tissue could prove to be very promising for wo...

Hormone therapy for organ transplantation

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital have found that patients undergoing organ transplants can be primed by using hormones which could recognize the new organ as self // and does not produce an immune response against it causing no immune rejection of the organ. Scientists feel that this priming would be better than immunosuppressive drugs as immune suppressive drugs leads to loss of i...

Cell transplants for stroke

According to new animal studies, the researchers have found that the bone marrow cell transplant improved functioning after stroke. Researchers in the US have been studying the ability of human bone marrow cells// - known as stromal cells - to restore function in brain-damaged rats. Animals were given injections of the cells, which came from healthy human volunteers. Compared to contr...

Leeches help in tissue transfer

Researchers at the University of Michigan, made a new study which showed that an odd medical approach may help patients after head and neck surgery. Ann Arbor say leeches are an effective addition when trying to salvage tissue transfers.Patients who have surgery// to remove cancer in and around the head and neck often need to have tissue transfers performed. Doctors say about 15 perc...

Useful drug for stem cell transplant problem

A new drug rescues patients suffering potentially fatal liver complications from cancer therapy. Generally high doses of chemotherapy are given before a stem cell transplant// such as a bone marrow transplant is used for cancer treatment. But chemotherapy causes five to 50 per cent of such patients to experience a potentially fatal complication called veno-occlusive disease (VOD), which damages c...

Pancreas transplant gives hope to type 2 diabetes

A new hope for patients with type 2 diabetes. According to a new survey, they showed that a few patients with type 2 diabetes have been selected for a pancreas transplant.// Obesity is a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. In type 2 diabetes, the body develops a resistance to insulin, usually in the m...

Alternative to blood Transfusions

According to a new study, a new drug may lower the need for blood transfusions in surgical patients with acute anemia. The new drug, polymerized bovine hemoglobin (HBOC-201),// is delivered intravenously and supplies oxygen to the blood of the recipient. The structure of the HBOC-201 is smaller and more mobile than blood cells, therefore allowing the HBOC-201 molecules to effectively distribute o...

Importance of type of sex in organ transplantation

Women do not fare as well as men when it comes to organ transplantation, both as donors and recipients. Researchers in Germany now confirm what has long been suspected - kidneys, hearts and livers from female donors are more likely to be rejected// by the recipients than those from males. Female recipients are also more likely to reject a donated organ. The study covered more than 114...

Bridge to liver transplant looks encouraging

According to researchers a device that filters toxins from the blood can buy a patient time while waiting for a liver transplant. Liver failure is a relatively common problem and most often the only cure is a transplant.// But donated livers are in short supply and many patients die while waiting for one. Research on an artificial liver has been going on for many years now, but the liver is such...

Cholesterol lowering drugs aid people after heart transplant

According to a new study, there is a large survival benefit in taking cholesterol-lowering drugs after a heart transplant. Researchers in Munich have studied the effect of taking simvastatin soon after a heart transplant. //They looked at a group of 72 patients who had had heart transplants from 1992. Of these, 32 took the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin four days after treatment, while the...

Need for Blood Transfusions reduced

The need for blood transfusions among critically ill patients may now be reduced by a new substance. A study showed that patients in intensive care with a lowered need for transfusion were the ones who had received weekly administration //of the man-made protein. Researchers examined the effectiveness of a substance called recombinant human erythropoietin, or rHuEPO, that stimulates th...

More risks connected with live-donor liver transplants

A study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine has reported that the risk of complications for the donor in a live-donor liver transplant is more than expected, while the risk of death for the donor is less than what doctors thought. The study indicated that donors in adult live-donor liver transplants had a 1-in-7 chance of serious complications for the donor. This type of tra...

Drugs Deter Heart Disease for Transplant Patients

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may help kidney transplant patients reduce their risk of heart attacks, shows a new international study. Drugs called statins have been shown to minimize cardiovascular disease in people with high cholesterol, and they also reduce the incidence in people with normal cholesterol levels who have other conditions that put them at higher risk for heart problems. Kidn...

Thymus transplant could save babies

Babies born without a thymus - an essential immune system component - can get a shot at life with surgery using tissue normally discarded during cardiac operations on other infants, researchers said on Thursday. Between five and 10 children are born in the United States each year without a thymus gland, and they always die because they cannot develop an immune system. The thymus is the orga...

Baltimore doctors perform three simultaneous kidney transplants

BALTIMORE, Johns Hopkins University surgeons performed three simultaneous kidney transplants in a complex piece of medical choreography that had nurses rushing organs in labeled coolers among six operating rooms. "We each have a piece of each other inside us," said one of the recipients.The six synchronized operations -- three to remove the kidneys, three to implant them -- became possible...

Better Drug for Heart Transplant

A new study shows the drug everolimus is better at reducing problems in heart transplant patients than one of the currently used drugs. Specifically the drug reduced the incidence of a serious disorder that can cause deterioration of the graft known as coronary vasculopathy.// Previous studies have shown everolimus combined with another drug reduced the rejection and risk of infection...

Kidney Failure after Non-Kidney Transplants

Doctors have long known that kidney failure is a complication of organ transplantation. Now, they know more about //which types of transplants are most likely to lead to chronic kidney failure. Researchers from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, report patients who have intestine transplants are more likely to have kidney failure compared to those who receive heart-lung transplants....

Measles Risk in Transplant Patients

People with a compromised immune system who have undergone organ transplantation could be at a high risk of measles if they don’t receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in a timely manner.// Completion of MMR vaccination in southeast London is among the lowest in the United Kingdom. Just over 60 percent of children aged 2 years received a first dose of the vaccine by March 2003...

West Nile and Blood Transfusions

A new study shows blood transfusions may have played a role in the spread of the West Nile virus during the 2002 epidemic in the United States. Researchers interviewed individuals who donated their blood to patients infected with the West Nile virus. //They asked the participants whether they had symptoms of a viral illness before or after donating the blood. Researchers also tested blood...

Reducing HIV Transmission

Researchers report encouraging results from a follow-up study of a new drug aimed at reducing the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborn children.// Health officials estimate in 2002 about 800,000 children around the world were infected with HIV through mother-to-child transmission. More than 90 percent of these cases occurred in underdeveloped nations. The i...