May 22, 2024
Organ Donation / Transplantation
May 13, 2024
First Person to Receive a Genetically Modified Pig Kidney Transplant Dies Nearly 2 Months Later
(Associated Press) – The first recipient of a genetically modified pig kidney transplant has died nearly two months after he underwent the procedure, his family and the hospital that performed the surgery said Saturday. Richard “Rick” Slayman had the transplant … Read More
April 25, 2024
A New Kind of Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Was Just Transplanted Into a Person
(MIT Technology Review) – A month ago, Richard Slayman became the first living person to receive a kidney transplant from a gene-edited pig. Now, a team of researchers from NYU Langone Health reports that Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from … Read More
April 24, 2024
She Was Too Sick for a Traditional Transplant. So She Received a Pig Kidney and a Heart Pump
(Associated Press) – Doctors have transplanted a pig kidney into a New Jersey woman who was near death, part of a dramatic pair of surgeries that also stabilized her failing heart. Lisa Pisano’s combination of heart and kidney failure left … Read More
April 23, 2024
New Race-Neutral Kidney Evaluation Moves Thousands of Black Patients Up Transplant Waitlist
(ABC News) – The U.S. faces a dire kidney organ shortage, meaning patients with kidney failure must meet certain criteria to be considered good candidates for a transplant. One of those considerations is a test called the “eGFR” calculation, which … Read More
April 22, 2024
Medicare Ignored Expert Advice to Cut Tests for Transplant Patients: Report
(The Hill) – Contractors for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) cut access to tests for transplant patients that could show early signs of organ rejection despite expert physicians advising the opposite, a new report has found. (Read … Read More
April 16, 2024
Patients Die Every Day Waiting for Organ Transplants. The Problem Goes Beyond Donations
(NPR) – NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with Jennifer Erickson, senior fellow with the Federation of American Scientists, about the organ transplant system and how eligible donated organs wind up in the trash. (Listen Here)
April 12, 2024
Texas Surgeon Is Accused of Secretly Denying Liver Transplants
(New York Times) – For decades, Dr. J. Steve Bynon Jr., a transplant surgeon in Texas, gained accolades and national prominence for his work, including by helping to enforce professional standards in the country’s sprawling organ transplant system. But officials … Read More
April 8, 2024
Patient with Transplanted Pig Kidney Had a ‘Tense’ Rejection Episode Before Leaving the Hospital
(STAT News) – The world’s first recipient of a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig experienced a rejection episode before recovering and leaving the hospital last week, a Massachusetts General Hospital doctor told STAT. But in his first few … Read More
April 5, 2024
Pig Kidney Transplant Raises Hopes for Clinical Trials
(Axios) – The success of the world’s first pig kidney transplant could stoke large-scale clinical trials on implanting animal tissues in humans to help ease the organ shortage crisis. Why it matters: Demand for donated organs is vast as transplants … Read More
April 4, 2024
Patient with Transplanted Pig Kidney Leaves Hospital for Home
(New York Times) – The first patient to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig has fared so well that he was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, just two weeks after the groundbreaking surgery. The transplant and … Read More
April 3, 2024
Pig Transplants Are Cool. They Shouldn’t Be Necessary.
(Vox) – This is unquestionably good news for Slayman, and while routine pig kidney transplants are still a few years off, it’s obviously good for people with kidney failure to have more options. We shouldn’t let the news distract us, … Read More
April 3, 2024
A Biased Test Kept Thousands of Black People from Getting a Kidney Transplant. It’s Finally Changing
(Associated Press) – Jazmin Evans had been waiting for a new kidney for four years when her hospital revealed shocking news: She should have been put on the transplant list in 2015 instead of 2019 — and a racially biased … Read More
April 3, 2024
This Bag of Cells Could Grow New Livers Inside of People
(Wired) – For the first time, scientists are attempting to grow a new, miniature liver inside of a person. It sounds like science fiction; in fact, the idea was the plot of a Grey’s Anatomy episode that aired in 2018. … Read More
April 2, 2024
The Organ Is Still Working. But It’s Not in a Body Anymore
(New York Times) – Surgeons are experimenting with organs from genetically modified animals, hinting at a future when they could be a source for transplants. But the field is already undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by technologies in widespread use … Read More
March 28, 2024
The Race to Reinvent CPR
(New York Times) – When a patient in cardiac arrest is placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, as Sauer was, the treatment is called ECPR. The type of ECMO intervention used in ECPR provides full life support, which … Read More
March 25, 2024
New Articles from BMC Medical Ethics Are Now Available
March 21, 2024
Surgeons Transplant Pig Kidney Into a Patient, a Medical Milestone
(New York Times) – Surgeons in Boston have transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into an ailing 62-year-old man, the first procedure of its kind. If successful, the breakthrough offers hope to hundreds of thousands of Americans whose … Read More
March 20, 2024
How Francia Raisa Discovered Her Kidney Was a Match for Selena Gomez
February 29, 2024
Guy Alexandre, Transplant Surgeon Who Redefined Death, Dies at 89
(New York Times) – Guy Alexandre, a Belgian transplant surgeon who in the 1960s risked professional censure by removing kidneys from brain-dead patients whose hearts were still beating — a procedure that greatly improved organ viability while challenging the medical … Read More
February 29, 2024
How Genetically Modified Pigs Could End the Shortage of Organs for Transplants
(NPR) – At the end of the drive, I meet David Ayares, who runs Revivicor Inc., a biotech company based in Blacksburg, Virginia. Ayares has invited me to be the first journalist to tour the company’s research farm, which is … Read More
February 9, 2024
A Death Sentence: Native Americans Have Least Access to Liver Transplant System
(Washington Post) – Native Americansare far less likely than other racial groups to gain a spot on the national liver transplant list, despite having the highest rate of death from liver disease, according to an analysis of four years of … Read More
February 7, 2024
Health Officials Ask for Bids to Run Revamped Organ Transplant System
(Axios) – The Biden administration hasopened up applications to run a revamped network for distributing donated organs — but lack of funding could jeopardize those efforts, federal health officials said Tuesday. Why it matters: This is the first time in … Read More
January 19, 2024
A First-Ever Experiment Shows How Pigs Might One Day Help People Who Have Liver Failure
(Associated Press) – Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure. The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment … Read More
January 19, 2024
