July 25, 2001 - A Philadelphia-based organ donation/collection program is using a sophisticated technique known as a pulsatile preservation. The technology is allowing them to harvest organs from older donors, thus increasing the pool of potential organ donors.

July 12, 2001 - There have been several transplant stories in the news this week:

The national Organ Procurement and Transplant Network (OPTN) web site, www.optn.org was launched Monday, July 2. The site provides the most current U.S. donation and transplantation data available on the Internet.

"Scarring Process Plays Major Role In Kidney Rejection Following Transplant" - Summary by EurekAlert! of a study that appeared this week in the New England Journal of Medicine (abstract).

"Two new initiatives aimed at getting organs to most needy candidates" - Article from the AHA (American Hospital Association).

XIX International Congress of The Transplantation Society will held on August 18-23, 2002 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

July 7, 2001 - The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded a $100,000 grant to the University of Tennessee in Memphis to explore improvements to the way organ transplant centers serve living donors.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) released a study this week that shows of the 12,000-15,000 potential organ donors that have been declared dead using neurological criteria, only 6,000 actually become organ donors each year. The main factor limiting the number of organ donors is the low percentage of families who consent to donation. Here is the abstract of the article entitled, "Factors Influencing Families' Consent for Donation of Solid Organs for Transplantation". Here is a press release from the AHRQ that summarizes the JAMA study.

CNN has been running a story this week about the use of "older" organs for transplant. It is now becoming common to use kidneys, livers, and hearts from 50, 60 and even 70 year-old donors.

June 29, 2001 - China denied this week that it harvested organs from executed prisoners (link is no longer available). Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said the physician who testified at a US House hearing this week had fabricated "a vicious slander" and "sensational lies".

Here is an interview from the BBC with a Malaysian patient about the kidney transplant she received in China.

June 27, 2001 - In testimony before the House Subcommittee on International Operation and Human Rights, a physician who was formerly in People's Liberation Army of China told of his participation in removing organs from prisoners who were just executed or who were still alive after botched executions.

Here is the subcommittee web page providing links to all the testimony given today at the "Organs for Sale: China's Growing Trade and Ultimate Violation of Prisoners' Rights" hearing.

Here is a summary of the hearings from the Washington Post.

June 26, 2001 - This article from the National Post web site reports that US businessman Phillip Slaton wants to capitalize on the emerging black market in human body parts. He has been trying to persuade Canadians to sign on to his plan to open an offshore transplant clinic in the Caribbean that will offer patients kidneys purchased from Eastern Europeans. (link is no longer available)

According to the article, Slaton plans to charge patients up to $1.25 million for a kidney transplant and pay the living donors $50,000 for one of their kidneys.

In other transplant-related news, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations will hold hearings tomorrow on China's policy of selling organs of executed prisoners for transplantation. By some estimates, 90 percent of transplants performed in China use human organs taken from executed prisoners. Amnesty International reports that some prisoners are executed for such crimes as "counter- revolutionary offenses" a code word for pro-democracy activism. Holiday executions and "Strike Hard" campaigns are designed to facilitate organ harvesting of executed prisoners with the payments for transplants funneled to China's military. (link is no longer available)

The National Post recently ran a two-part series on how a wealthy Canadian businessman bought a new kidney in a Manila slum. Here are Part I and Part II of the series. (link is no longer available)

Another recent National Post article outlines a new scheme that utilizes futures contracts to increase the supply of organs for donation. (link is no longer available)

June 15, 2001 - This week's issue of the British Medical Journal has a news item that reports an estimated 30-50 Canadians travel each year to China, India, and the Philippines for kidney transplants because waiting lists for the operation are so long in Canada. The wait for a kidney transplant in Toronto can be as long as six years.

June 11, 2001 - Here is an essay from the Canadian web site, National Post, that makes a case for legalizing the sale of human kidneys. It is entitled, Kidney Commerce". (link is no longer available)

June 9, 2001 - The Washington Post published an extensive article about organ exchanges in today's edition. It discusses the new tactics that are being used to attract living donors.

Here are other recent developments in kidney transplantation:

Registry Report: "Renal replacement therapy in Europe: the results of a collaborative effort by the ERA�EDTA registry and six national or regional registries" - abstract from Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation. This study shows that patient survival over the last two decades has been much greater in transplant recipients than in dialysis patients.

June 1, 2001 - There have been several recent news items related to kidney transplantation:

"Relationship Between Underlying Renal Disease and Renal Transplantation Outcome" - abstract from the AJKD (American Journal of Kidney Diseases)

"Lack of Long-Term Benefits of Steroid Withdrawal in Renal Transplant Recipients" - abstract from AJKD

"High Blood Pressure A New Risk Factor For Kidney Rejection" - article from Science Daily

"A Comparison Between Office and Ambulatory Blood Pressure Measurements in Renal Transplant Patients With Chronic Transplant Nephropathy" - abstract from AJKD

May 30, 2001 - Here is an article from CNN by Jeffrey Kahn, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. He makes a case for not selling human organs for profit.

May 27, 2001 - The New York Times has published an extensive article entitled, "This Little Kidney Went to Market". It provides personal accounts of the human organ trafficking that occurs in Europe and the Middle East. It also discusses the causes and consequences of the long transplant waiting lists in the United States. It is excellent reading - be sure to view all seven pages.

You must register with the NY Times to view this story. It is free and takes about a minute to register. Click here for the NY Times link to the page.

Here is a recent article, first published in the Village Voice, about the growing number of Americans that are traveling to China to get kidneys from executed prisoners.

On a related issue, here is a BBC news item on the scandal that is slowly unfolding in central China over the huge number of people infected with HIV through the sale of their blood.

May 23, 2001 - Dialysis patients waiting for a transplant who have high HLA antibody levels in their blood are at high-risk for rejecting a transplanted kidney. A "huge breakthrough" for these patients has been reported from Sweden. A 46-year-old man who had previously rejected three transplanted kidneys within five days each is reportedly in "excellent" condition with no signs of rejection after undergoing a new procedure that also involved replacing part of his liver.

Here is another story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that reports that split liver transplants are on the rise. Split liver transplants usually involve taking a segment of the left lobe for a child and using the rest for an adult. The liver has a remarkable ability to grow, reaching full size in each recipient in as little as two weeks.

May 22, 2001 - Patients who receive a kidney transplant remain at high risk for hospitalizations for septicemia, which are associated with substantially decreased patient survival. Here are two recent articles on infections in kidney transplant patients:

"Hospitalizations for Bacterial Septicemia after Renal Transplantation in the United States" - abstract from AJN (American Journal of Nephrology)

"Cryptococcus neoformans Infection in Organ Transplant Recipients: Variables Influencing Clinical Characteristics and Outcome" - full article from the current issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a CDC publication

May 19, 2001 - This has been a very busy week in terms of transplantation news:

"'Good dendritic cells' could help the body accept organ transplants", from the BBC. Scientists says these cells could aid the body's transplant tolerance and hope the discovery will help them identify patients who no longer need to take immunosuppressant drugs.

"New Drug Approach Avoids Side Effects in Children Receiving Kidney Transplants". A Stanford study shows promising results with a steroid-free immunosuppressive drug protocol. Steroids, commonly used to avoid rejection of newly transplanted organs, can cause serious side effects in children, ranging from high blood pressure and acne to impaired growth and an abnormally round, puffy face.

May 15, 2001 - The Transplant 2001 meeting is currently taking place in Chicago. Here are some of the news stories coming out of that meeting:

"Transplant 2001: Calcium Supplementation Prevents Bone Loss in Renal Transplant Patients" from the Doctor's Guide to the Internet.

"Newer form of cyclosporine helps kidney transplant patients do better in long term" from EurekAlert! (link is no longer available)

The following press release (link is no longer available) was issued by The European Pancreas Transplant Study Group for Immunosuppression: "Simultaneous Pancreas-Kidney (SPK) Transplantation is emerging as the state-of-the-art treatment for diabetic patients scheduled to receive a kidney transplant."

Other transplant-related news:

Waffle House waitress donates kidney to customer. Press release (link no longer available) from Waffle House.

"Personality profile of kidney donors identified" from Medical Economics. (link no longer available)

May 14, 2001 - There are two articles in the news today about immunosuppressants for kidney transplants:

"New immunosuppressive regimen protects against organ rejection" (tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil) from Medical Economics. (link is no longer available)

"Study: New anti-rejection drug may be less toxic" (Rapamune) from the CNN Health site. (link is no longer available)

Here is an opinion piece from this week's issue of the American Medical News entitled, "Organ donation: The physician factor"

Here is an informative website for those considering kidney transplantation, "A Patient's Guide to Kidney Transplant Surgery" from the University of Southern California Kidney Transplant Program.


[This message has been edited by Gary Peterson (edited 12-08-2001).]