Now, kidney transplants from any donor possible :- Gina Kolata, March 21, 2016, International New York Times
Desensitisation alters patients' immune systems to allow them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors.
In the anguishing wait for a new kidney, tens of thousands of patients on waiting lists may never find a match because their immune systems will reject almost any transplanted organ. Now, in a large national study that experts are calling revolutionary, researchers have found a way to get them the desperately needed procedure.
In the new study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, doctors successfully altered patients' immune systems to allow them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors. Significantly, more of those patients were still alive after 8 years than patients who had remained on waiting lists or received a kidney transplanted from a deceased donor.
The method, known as desensitisation, "has the potential to save many lives," said Dr Jeffery Berns, a kidney specialist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and the president of the National Kidney Foundation.
It could slash the wait times for thousands of people and for some, like Clint Smith, a 56-year-old lawyer in New Orleans, mean the difference between receiving a transplant and spending the rest of their lives on dialysis. The procedure, Smith said, "changed my life."
full article in the link below
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/535789/now-kidney-transplants-any-donor.html www.keralites.net          |
Posted by: Ravi Narasimhan <ravi.narasimhan.in@gmail.com>
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