Man accused of phony lung transplant scam

Police say Nick Scholten collected more than $65,000 for medical expenses

By Ray Pitz tigardtimes.com

Salem (Oregon) police are continuing their investigation into a Sherwood man they believed conned a relative out of as much as $60,000 after saying he needed the money for a lung transplant.

On Monday, detectives arrested Nick Scholten, 27, in a Sherwood parking lot, charging him with first-degree theft and first-degree aggravated theft. He was taken into custody and lodged at the Marion County Jail, where his bail was set at $100,000.

He did post bail during an arraignment on Tuesday and his next court appearance is set for Oct. 6.

Salem police reported that between May 26 and Aug. 9, Scholten’s 86-year-old great uncle, who is a Salem resident, gave giving Scholten $60,000 to cover medical expenses.

“(Scholten) used the money to pay off various debts and personal expenses,” said Salem Police Detective Jacob Pratt, who along with Detective Mike Korcek, investigated the case.

In addition to such items as televisions and two used Cadillacs, which police said he was planning to resell to make a profit, Scholten told them he used some of the money to “pay outstanding drug debts,” specifically to pay for marijuana.

Scholten’s story was featured in the April 28 issue of The Times. During an interview at the time, Scholten said that his lungs had been damaged from inhaling muriatic acid while working for a pool and spa company, and his condition was exasperated by exposure to toxic mold at his former apartment complex.

Double lung transplant
Scholten’s alleged actions began to unravel last summer when a U.S. Bank official suspected some type of elder abuse after noticing large amounts of money being withdrawn from the relative’s account.

Those included two checks for $5,000, two checks for $10,000, one check for $11,000 and one check for $19,000.

So police approached Scholten.

“When we spoke to Mr. Scholten in August, he stuck to his story,” said Pratt.

Police had their doubts and obtained several subpoenas to access medical records.

One of their first steps was to contact Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, where Scholten said he had the double lung transplant operation. Scholten had never been a patient there, hospital officials confirmed. Detectives then checked a national organ transplant registry and couldn’t locate his name, Pratt said.

After Scholten gave detectives the name of his local doctor, the doctor confirmed that Scholten was never in need of a lung transplant. A final call was placed to officials at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital who confirmed that if the Sherwood man had a double lung transplant, he wouldn’t be in any condition to fly back home in a week as he told his family he had.

“We had a pretty good idea it wasn’t true,” Pratt said after investigating Scholten’s story.

Pratt said when Scholten was supposedly in New York for the operation — which he told relatives included some heart surgery as well — he actually stayed at area motels.

Devastated and numb
Neither Roxanne nor Scholten’s wife are believed to be involved in the deception, according to Pratt.

Roxanne Scholten confirmed Tuesday that she had no idea what her son was up to and neither did her daughter-in-law.

“I’m devastated. I’m just devastated,” she said. “I’m still numb about the whole thing.”

Roxanne Scholten had held Tupperware parties to raise funds for her son’s medical expenses.

Alice Thornton, a friend of Roxanne Scholten, said she and other people in the community really believed that Nick was sick.

“He had all of us snowed,” she said. “He certainly told a good yarn, and everyone believed it.”

Pratt said Scholten also claimed to need surgery to replace a right bronchial tube in August and that surgery had never taken place either. In that situation, police say Scholten simply told his mother he needed the surgery (again allegedly at the same New York hospital) but never left Sherwood. He then simply “avoided her” for several days, they said.

In addition to taking money from his relative, Scholten is believed to have collected between $2,000 to $2,500 from a US Bank account set up in his name to defray medical expenses and between $3,000 and $5,000 from donations made directly to him, said Pratt.

Pratt said individuals who donated to Scholten can contact their local police to file a report in hopes of recouping their money. As of Wednesday, Capt. James Reid of the Sherwood Police Department said he wasn’t aware of any calls to the department related to the Scholten case.

Pratt said it would have been very difficult for the average resident to determine that Scholten was not being truthful.

“They couldn’t have done anything differently because it’s believable,” he said.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

3-year-old liver recipient "a new girl"

NEW GIRL: Sophie and her mum Amanda Barr yesterday. Picture: LEIGH WINBURN

themercury.com, Tasmania

For brave little Sophie Chilcott, the outlook is rosy.

Just two months after her life-saving liver transplant, the healthy and happy three-year-old made her first public appearance back home in Tasmania yesterday.

Sophie was born with biliary atresia, a rare condition that affects one in 20,000 children, mainly girls.

After an excruciating nine months on the waiting list, in which Sophie became more and more ill, a liver became available and she had the operation at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital on July 18.

Sophie's mother Amanda Barr said her daughter was a new girl since recovering from the operation.

Sophie takes medication, including anti-rejection drugs, 16 times a day.

"Every fortnight we go to Melbourne for check-ups but gradually they will be further and further apart," Ms Barr said.

She said Sophie's twin brother Toby and older brother Ryan were now able to play with their sister.

"Now she's running around and has more energy than they do," she said. "Once she knocked their building blocks over and Ryan joked 'She needs to get her old liver back'."

Ms Barr, of Glenorchy, said she was thrilled to hear Australian organ donations and transplants were on the rise.

"I think about the donor family all the time," she said. "It's very bittersweet. We're celebrating but it does take someone passing away for it to happen."

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King was in Hobart yesterday to met Sophie and highlight the importance of organ and tissue donation in Tasmania.

"There are 1500 people in Australia on the organ donor waiting list at the moment," she said.

"They are in severe medical distress. It is life-changing surgery and when you see someone like Sophie, who now has her whole life ahead of her, it is an incredible gift."

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

New specialty license plate to benefit organ donation in North Carolina

A new specialty license plate approved by the state General Assembly will promote organ donations. The bill that created the plate was sponsored by Rep. Mitch Gillespie (center). He is standing behind a banner that shows the Donate Life logo that will appear on the new specialty plate. Debbie Harris and her husband, David, stand on the left. David Harris received a heart transplant in 2004. Anita Erwin and her husband, Mike, stand on the right. Anita Erwin’s son Michael Williams was an organ donor and his heart was transplanted into Harris. (Photo contributed)

By Mike Conley The McDowell News
Seven years ago, a young man in Kannapolis was killed in an automobile accident. Even though his young life was tragically cut short, it allowed three other people, including a McDowell man, to have a new chance at life.

And now, a new specialty license plate in North Carolina will encourage others to do the same.

Recently, N.C. Rep. Mitch Gillespie announced the passage of a bill in the General Assembly in June that creates a specialty plate to help educate the public about organ donation. Gillespie, a Republican from McDowell, sponsored House Bill 289/S.L. 2011-392. This bill creates a specialty license plate that promotes organ donation in North Carolina. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Bev Perdue.

The proceeds from the sale of this special plate will be used benefit Donate Life North Carolina, a non-profit, collaborative group of organizations that promote eye, organ and tissue donation. “Working together, the member organizations are directly involved in supporting donor families and facilitating organ, eye and tissue transplants across the state,” reads Donate Life North Carolina’s website. “Our mission is to inspire all North Carolina residents to save and enhance lives by registering as organ, eye and tissue donors.”

The money made from the sale of the specialty plates will be used to educate the public about organ donation, promote donor registration and to support donor families and transplant recipients and their families at the five transplant centers by helping to pay their expenses, according to a news release from Gillespie’s office.

The five transplant centers in the state are Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte; Duke University Medical Center, Durham; East Carolina University Medical Center, Greenville; UNC Health Care, Chapel Hill; and Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, Winston-Salem.

The Donate Life program in North Carolina has already helped many people. On June 21, 2004, Michael Williams was involved in an automobile accident, along with his girlfriend. Williams died the next day on June 22. He was just a few days short of his 18th birthday, which was June 26.

Williams attended South Rowan High School and was a member of the school’s swim team.

“He was a normal high school kid who enjoyed going to high school football games,” said his mother Anita Erwin of Kannapolis. “He was actively involved in his church youth group and he went on a mission trip to Australia. He had been accepted to Western Carolina University and his ultimate goal was to become a physical therapist.”

Williams was also an organ donor and because of this, he was able to save others. On the same day he died, his heart was transplanted into David Harris of Marion. Another man in North Carolina received a kidney while a man in Kentucky received his liver.

“I am thankful my son died a hero,” said Erwin. “His death saved the lives of three men. How can a mother be any more proud of her son than that?”

Harris received his new heart on June 22, 2004 during a transplant surgery performed at Carolinas Medical Center. Harris was 46 at the time of the surgery and in desperate need of a new heart.

“Michael is my hero,” said Harris, who is 53 now. “If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have received a second chance in life.”

This wasn’t the first time the Harris family has been affected by organ donation. On March 29, 2003, Harris’ son Josh died of the same heart disease. The younger Harris made sure his organs would be donated, after he was gone, according to his father.

“Our whole family has been organ donors,” said David Harris. “My next-to-oldest brother got a new heart 21 years ago.”

After her son’s death, Erwin looked to see if there was a specialty plate in North Carolina that supports organ donation. Since none existed, she spoke with Harris about getting one created. Both had lost a child and both of their late children had been organ donors.

“(Harris) had the same passion for wanting to get this license plate going,” said Erwin.

Because of these experiences, Harris talked to Gillespie about sponsoring a specialty plate that would promote organ donation and help those are involved in the effort.

“I had approached Mitch about this after I had my transplant,” said Harris. “I kind of wanted to do something. A donor saved my life. I think it’s a wonderful thing.”

“David contacted me five years ago concerning a specialty plate to support organ donation,” said Gillespie. “This year, a bill finally passed that would allow the plate to be issued. This tag remembers the donors, honors those who receive the donated organs and brings focus on organ donation that will save lives.”

And the Harris family has developed a strong relationship with the family of Michael Williams. David Harris and his wife, Debbie, have forged a bond with Anita Erwin and her husband, Mike.

“Anita and I have done a TV commercial together,” said Harris. “We’ve done a magazine article together. We are really into donating life. They are just like my family.”

Erwin and Harris have been featured in a newspaper article in Concord. They also gave a presentation about organ donation at Harris’ church, the First Freewill Baptist on Baldwin Avenue.

The license plates will begin production when the first 300 applications are received, Gillespie said.

The cost for a regular Donate Life North Carolina specialty plate is an annual $20 fee, in addition to the regular license fee. A portion of the fee for the specialty plate will be sent to Donate Life North Carolina to be shared with the five transplant centers. Applicants can also get a personalized Donate Life license plate for a $50 annual fee with four spaces for a personalized message, according to the organization’s website.

To apply for the plate, contact Donate Life North Carolina. You can find the application on the organization’s website at www.donatelifenc.org. You can also email info@donatelifenc.org. After the first 300 applications are received, folks will be able to apply for the plate at any Division of Motor Vehicles tag office.

Both Erwin and Harris said they appreciate how much Gillespie worked to get this approved.

“Every time it would come up to be voted on, (Gillespie) would call me and let me know,” said Harris. “He was excellent in getting it approved.”

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

StemCells reports world's 1st neural stem cell transplant in spinal cord injury patient

Stem cell research has the potential to cure many human conditions such as cancer, birth defects and the treatment of diseases by genetic engineering. Even the regeneration of organs for transplantation could be possible.

pharmabiz.com
StemCells, Inc. announced that the first patient in the company's breakthrough phase I/II clinical trial in chronic spinal cord injury was successfully transplanted with the company's proprietary HuCNS-SC adult neural stem cells. The stem cells were administered at Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich, a world leading medical centre for spinal cord injury and rehabilitation. The transplant surgery was performed by a team of surgeons led by Dr Raphael Guzman, a visiting staff neurosurgeon also on faculty at Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, and Dr K Min, an orthopaedic surgeon at Balgrist University Hospital.

"I am pleased to be a part of this innovative clinical trial designed to help us assess the safety and potential efficacy of HuCNS-SC stem cells for spinal cord injury," explains Dr. Armin Curt, Principal Investigator. "The preclinical data underlying this trial provided compelling rationale to conduct a study of this nature in spinal cord-injured patients." StemCells, Inc. has published numerous preclinical studies demonstrating the therapeutic potential of the company's human neural stem cells for the treatment of acute and chronic spinal cord injury. These studies were conducted in close collaboration with Drs. Aileen Anderson and Brian Cummings of the University of California, Irvine.

The first patient transplanted in the trial, a 23-year-old German man, suffered a spinal cord injury in an automobile accident in April of this year. He sustained a complete loss of sensation and mobility from the waist down. When asked about his decision to enroll in this leading-edge study, he said: "This terrible injury crossed out almost all my life plans, and has led me to an unexpected path. Participating in this clinical trial not only gives me a sense of hope, but it also helps move this important research forward."

"With this first patient enrolled and dosed, we remain on track to meet our goal of treating the first cohort of patients by the end of this year," said Stephen Huhn MD, FACS, FAAP, vice president and head of the CNS Program at StemCells, Inc. "While the trial's first cohort will consist of patients with the most severe, complete injury, the second and third cohorts will progress to patients with less severe, incomplete injury. This unique trial design will allow us to evaluate the potential of our HuCNS-SC cells as a treatment for a broad spectrum of spinal cord injury patients. Even a small improvement could have a marked impact on quality of life for the millions of people who suffer from this debilitating condition."

The phase I/II clinical trial of StemCells, Inc.'s HuCNS-SC purified human adult neural stem cells is designed to assess both safety and preliminary efficacy. Twelve patients with thoracic (chest-level) neurological injuries at the T2-T11 level are planned for enrollment. The first three patients will all have injuries classified as ASIA A, in which there is no apparent neurological function below the injury level, the most severe level identified by the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale. The second and third cohorts will be patients classified as ASIA B and ASIA C, those with less severe injury, in which there is some preservation of sensory or motor function. In addition to assessing safety, the trial will assess preliminary efficacy based on defined clinical endpoints, such as changes in sensation, motor and bowel/bladder function.

All patients will receive HuCNS-SC cells through direct transplantation into the spinal cord and will be temporarily immunosuppressed. Patients will be evaluated regularly in the post-transplant period in order to monitor and assess the safety of the HuCNS-SC cells, the surgery and the immunosuppression, as well as to measure any recovery of neurological function below the injury site. The Company intends to follow the effects of this therapy long-term, and a separate 4-year observational study will be initiated at the conclusion of this trial.

According to a study reported by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, nearly 1.3 million people in the United States are estimated to be living with chronic spinal cord injury. The chronic phase of spinal cord injury is considered to begin when inflammation has stabilized and recovery has reached a plateau, which is typically several months following injury. Currently, there are no effective treatment options for patients with chronic spinal cord injury, and treatment approaches have generally targeted the acute and sub-acute time points, which are within hours or days of injury. Given the unmet need in chronic spinal cord injury, restoring some degree of function for patients at time points beyond the acute phase could have a transformative impact on the field. StemCells hopes to address a broad population of spinal cord-injured patients by opening the window of opportunity for therapeutic intervention well after the acute injury and targeting a wide range of injury levels and degrees of impairment.

Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich is recognized worldwide as a highly specialized centre of excellence providing examination, treatment and rehabilitation opportunities to patients with serious musculoskeletal conditions.

StemCells, Inc. is engaged in the research, development, and commercialization of cell-based therapeutics and tools for use in stem cell-based research and drug discovery.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Doctors mulled over lung transplant for 70-year-old patient, then gave up the idea

By Soumyadipta Banerjee & Sneha Mahadevan dnaindia.com

Untill Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi breathed his last on Thursday evening, doctors attending to him at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi didn’t know how to revive the infected lungs of the former India captain.

According to a close friend of Pataudi’s daughter and Bollywood starlet Soha Ali Khan, the doctors couldn’t do much as the 70-year-old’s lungs failed rapidly. “They told us he was suffering from interstitial lung disease (interstitial pneumonitis) and that they really couldn’t do much about it,” the friend said. “They said they were trying their best to figure out how to treat him, but couldn’t do much to improve his condition. They couldn’t even tell us how he had contracted the disease, or explain the line of treatment,” the friend added.

At one point, the doctors discussed a possible lung transplant, but considering the septuagenarian’s condition, they dropped the idea. “They tried one antibiotic after another, but could never get him back,” the friend said. “We asked if he could be shifted to a speciality hospital, but by then, it was too late to move him.”

According to www.medicinenet.com, interstitial lung disease is a term that refers to a particular type of inflammation of the interstitium, the tissue surrounding and separating the tiny air sacs (alveolae) in the lungs. The disease involves inflammation of this supportive tissue between the air sacs rather than inflammation in the air sacs themselves.

It is typically a diffused process that occurs all over the lungs and is not confined to one location. And because interstitial lung disease has a number of causes (most of which are not related to infection), the term ‘interstitial pneumonitis’ is occasionally used to refer to the inflammation that occurs in the absence of true infection.

Pataudi was suffering from breathing problems for the last three months, but no one had anticipated that his condition would worsen so rapidly.

“He was unable to maintain his oxygen level in spite of all the treatment,” said one doctor at the hospital. “He was in the ICU for at least 20 days. The disease had been static (stable) for the last three months but it went from bad to worse over the last four weeks.

“The possibility of a lung transplant was discussed, but we decided not to go ahead as he was very weak and unstable,” the doctor added.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Record-setting numbers of organ donors sign up in Michigan

I am pleased to publish this guest post by Emily Matthews.
A record-setting 44,101 people signed up to become organ donors in the state of Michigan during the month of August 2011. That was an increase of over 10,000 compared to August 2010. The highest percentage of sign ups, 39%, were in Isabella County. August was the fourth month in row this year to see a double digit increase.

Credit for this significant increase in organ donors goes to Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. You don’t have to be rushing to find a masters degree in public health to know what the secret was to their success: outreach. In April 2011, Johnson initiated the Restart the Heart campaign, which encourages all visitors to a Secretary of State branch to become organ donors. In Michigan, the motor vehicle department, voter registration and election services, licensing for auto mechanics and dealerships and certification for notaries public are all administered by the Secretary of State. All offices that provide these services are Secretary of State branches.

Under the Restart the Heart campaign, posters about joining the registry are on display in Secretary of State branch offices, and employees encourage all customers to become organ donors. Johnson has also pushed for including organ donation reminders on forms such as drivers license applications and voter registration papers, and for the creation of a committee to further promote organ donation. The Secretary of State website includes a link to Michigan’s organ donor registry and frequently asked question regarding organ donation.

The Restart the Heart campaign has received strong public support. A recent poll of readers of the Michigan news website MLive.com showed that 67% had registered as organ donors and another 15% intended to do so. If the site’s readers reflect the makeup of the general population, over 90% of Michigan residents may be registered organ donors by the end of 2011.

Education appears to be a key factor in potential donors’ willingness to register. Many popularly held myths make people unwilling to donate, or lead people to believe they cannot. These myths include being too old or too young, that doctors will make less effort to save the lives of registered organ donors and that it is against religious beliefs.

In reality, age is not a barrier. Even people in their seventies and eighties may successfully donate organs in some cases, and those without viable organs can usually donate tissue. Minors may register as donors with parental consent. Doctors give equal effort to saving patients’ lives whether or not the patient has registered as a donor. Finally, the majority of religions have no prohibition on organ transplants. Part of the effort in Michigan includes debunking these myths.

In Michigan, spreading the word, educating potential donors and making the sign up process a natural part of doing personal business has greatly increased the pool of donors. Each donor reaches an average of eight patients, making the potential lives saved about eight times the number of donors. Similar efforts could save as many lives nationwide and around the world.

About the author:
Emily Matthews is currently applying to masters degree programs across the U.S., and loves to read about new research into health care, gender issues, and literature. She lives and writes in Seattle, Washington.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national 





transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Liver `kills immune cells`

"We now know liver cells also have the ability to subvert the orders of the immune system. Our discovery might explain why liver transplants have lower rejection rates than other organ transplants."

Defence troops - T-cellszeenews.com
Washington: Scientists claim to have found that liver can kill immune cells, a finding which they claim may pave the way for new approaches to transplant rejection, and fight against hepatitis and other chronic liver diseases.

An international team, led by the University of Sydney, says it has for the first time seen in mice how the liver goes independent, engulfing and destroying body`s defence troops --T-cells.

"In 2004, we discovered that healthy liver cells can engulf active immune cells, known as T-cells and now we`ve seen that those T-cells are actually destroyed," Dr Patrick Bertolino, who led the team, said.

He added: "The liver is an amazing organ. Most people think it just breaks down alcohol, but it`s the factory of the body -- breaking down substances we don`t want and making the ones that we do.

"We now know liver cells also have the ability to subvert the orders of the immune system. Our discovery might explain why liver transplants have lower rejection rates than other organ transplants."

In their research, the scientists proved found healthy mouse liver cells eating T-cells, which was unexpected as this "cell cannibalism" had only previously been seen in tumour cells.

One potential benefit of the research is reducing rejection in organ transplants, say the scientists.

In transplantations, the new organ is seen by the body as a foreign object: the spleen or lymph nodes tell naive T-cells to replicate and turn into killer T-cells, which are sent off to invade and kill the "foreign" cells.

What the scientists have discovered is the liver goes around this process -- liver cells signal to naive T-cells and digest them before they have a chance to become killer T-cells.

Team member Geoff McCaughan said the cocktail of immunosuppressive drugs that organ transplant patients receive reduce the odds of organ rejection but makes patients` immune systems weak, leaving them open to serious infection from otherwise minor illnesses like cold or flu. These drugs also predispose the patient to long term heart disease and cancer.

"If we can harness the way the liver controls T-cells, then longterm there is a chance that transplant patients won`t need these drugs," he said.

The findings have been published in the `Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences` journal.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Australian hospital considers cutback to lung transplant program

Lung transplant cutback plan 'beggars belief'

By Kate Hagan Theage.comn.au

FEWER Victorians will receive lifesaving lung transplants if The Alfred hospital proceeds with a plan to cut the program to save costs.

Staff and patients are outraged by the proposal, which was flagged this week in emails from hospital management.

The Saturday Age understands that management has told staff it does not have enough funding to maintain services and is considering cutbacks to the lung transplant program. The hospital performs all lung transplants for Victoria and Tasmania, and has already done 61 this year. But staff have been warned that numbers may be reduced to those of previous years in which about 50 patients received transplants.

The federal government has been campaigning for more people to donate organs.

But patient groups say this is pointless unless more transplant operations are funded by state governments.

Cystic Fibrosis Victoria chief executive Stephen Murby said: ''It's unbelievable that a bureaucrat with the stroke of a pen can sentence a person to premature death.

''These patients have no choice. You transplant or you die. There is no room for economic rationalism.

''The idea that you would go back to the caseloads of five years ago just to balance the books beggars belief.''

Mr Murby said cystic fibrosis patients made up the bulk of those to receive lung transplants, which were considered for patients who were down to 20-30 per cent of total lung capacity. They needed a transplant within two years to survive.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister David Davis said Alfred Health would receive growth funding of $24 million in 2011-12 including $550,000 for transplants and $300,000 for organ retrieval. She said a parliamentary inquiry would provide advice on meeting future demand.

A spokesperson for Alfred Health said the past 18 months had seen significant growth in the number of lung transplants.

"Alfred Health is currently finalising its budget allocations and any change - if required - to the lung transplant service is yet to be determined."

A total of 147 Australians are waiting for a lung transplant, including about 53 in Victoria and Tasmania.

The Age reported in May that measures to increase donations in Victoria had stalled because hospitals could not do any more transplants.

Victoria's medical director of organ and tissue donation, Helen Opdam, said yesterday that state governments had endorsed the national campaign to lift donor rates. In February this year, all state health ministers had committed to resourcing increased transplant services.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

British man receives new heart weeks before birth of new son

Ben Knight with his partner Lindsey, 13-week-old Oscar and 6-year-old Dylan. Photo Ben Parsons Burnley Express
A FATHER-OF-TWO who underwent a life-saving heart transplant operation earlier this year is urging people to “think positively” about organ donation.

Ben Knight (26) had the five-and-a-half-hour op at Whythenshawe Hospital, Manchester – just weeks before the birth of his son, Oscar.

Ben, who lives with his partner Lindsey Burtonwood in Whalley Road, Simonstone, and is also father of six-year-old Dylan, feared he would die before his new baby was born.

Having been given a “second chance”, he is urging people to sign the organ donation register and raise money for New Start (Whythenshawe Hospital’s Transplant Fund).

“I was worried I wouldn’t see the birth of Oscar who is 13 weeks old,” said Ben. “It was a very difficult time for Lindsay and the rest of my family.”

A former pupil of Ribblesdale High School, Ben explained how he was fit and healthy until he contracted a throat infection aged 16. “I was admitted to Burnley General Hospital where tests revealed I had glandular fever. I was transferred to the Critical Care Unit and remained there for two months as my heart was only working 15%.” He added that, after four months, he started to respond to the medication and was put on blood pressure tablets and beta-blockers.

Ben, an ex-pupil of Sabden Primary School, was added to the organ donor waiting list and had to change his lifestyle, giving up his job as an apprentice builder and hobbies, including football.

But, after 14 months on the waiting list, Ben’s condition deteriorated last October. He said: “I contracted a chest infection and my health went from bad to worse. I had a blood test which showed my oxygen levels were really low. The doctors told me my body had begun to reject the medication that had kept me alive for 10 years.

“As weeks passed, I began to feel breathless, tired, weak, had no motivation and was freezing all the time. My name was added to the emergency heart transplant list, but it was a frightening time for us as Lindsey was pregnant and there was no guarantee a donor match would be found in the next few months.”

In April Ben received the news a possible match had been found. “It all happened very quickly. I was relieved but scared at the same time.”

It is believed an 18-strong team of surgeons assisted in the operation and Ben made a full recovery. He added: “I was discharged in May and Oscar was born in June so I had little time to build my strength!”

Ben has thanked medics at Whythenshawe Hospital and friends Jack and Julie Holding, who took part in a cycle ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats to raise money for New Start.

Ben went on: “Everyone deserves a second chance in life if there is a chance, so I urge people to please consider the donor register.”

For information on organ donation log onto www.uktransplant.org.uk.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

New hope for half-match bone marrow transplant in blood cancer

by Delicia Honen Yard OncologyNurseAdvisor

A small study has demonstrated an improved process for making half-matched bone marrow or stem cell transplants for persons with blood cancer more successful.

Although the use of a genetically fully matched donor has yielded the best results in bone marrow transplant, many patients lack a fully matched related or unrelated donor. However, nearly every patient has a half-matched, or haploidentical relative. The successful use of haploindentical donors would greatly expand the number of donors available to every patient, yet half-matched bone marrow or stem cell transplants have been largely unsuccessful.

Neal Flomenberg, MD, chair of the department of medical oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and colleagues recently tested their new two-step approach to haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The 27 patients participating in the phase I/II trial had been diagnosed with leukemia, lymphoma, or myelodysplasia (median age: 52 years).

First, after undergoing radiation therapy, the patients were given a specified dose of T cells from their half-matched family donor—the person's parent, sibling, or child. This was followed by administration of the drug cyclophosphamide to enhance tolerance to the infused donor T cells.

In the second step of the transplant, patients were given a dose of the donor's stem cells to help normalize the patient's blood counts and further strengthen his or her new immune system.

As Flomenberg's team reported in the journal Blood, 17 of the 27 patients were alive 6 months posttransplant. Based on a follow-up of 28 to 56 months, 3-year probability of overall survival for the whole cohort was 48%, increasing to 75% for those who had been in remission at the time of transplantation.

The researchers called these outcomes encouraging, particularly in good-risk patients, and suggested that this procedure be further explored.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

MICHIGAN GROUP TO HOST 2012 TRANSPLANT GAMES

RenalBusiness.com
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—In late August, the West Michigan Sports Commission said it will host the Transplant Games of America to take place July 28-31, 2012, at Grand Valley State University.

The purpose of the Transplant Games of America is to spread the message about the importance of organ donation and the second chance of life.

“We applaud all efforts that help create awareness about giving the gift of life,” said Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson Johnson. “With 3,000 people in Michigan alone on waiting lists for organs, the need is critical. So many lives could be saved.”

Tentative sporting events include: 5K run, badminton, basketball, cycling, golf, swimming, table tennis, tennis, track & field and volleyball. The only events that will not be held on GVSU’s campus are bowling and racquetball which will be located at different venues.

Since 1990, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) hosted a biennial Olympic-style event to showcase the success of transplantation, promote health and fitness for transplant recipients and recognize and honor donor families and living donors. However, in May, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) suspended the 2012 U.S. Transplant Games.

"For 20 years the NKF U.S. Transplant Games have educated the public about the life-saving power of organ donation and dramatically demonstrated that those with transplants can and do lead normal and active lives,” NKF CEO John Davis said in a news release. “But the Games represent a multi-million dollar expense for the foundation that also requires a significant commitment of staff resources.

"Now, when most Americans view transplantation as almost routine surgery that restores life, we will re-examine the format and financial structure of the Games, to achieve maximum impact and to ensure sustainability going forward,” he continued. “As always, we will work with a range of constituents and supporters to accomplish this."

Transplant Games of America founder TJ Maciak was adamant in continuing the games. “These Transplant Games are special to many people. The games are like a big transplant family reunion and due to the way the event was originally cancelled for 2012; I could not sit back and do nothing. I made it my own personal mission to try to find a way to make these games happen. and I knew West Michigan would be perfect community to pull this amazing feat off,” Maciak said.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Should the ban on HIV-positive organ transplants be lifted?

By Angela Townsend, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As of Aug. 29, nearly 112,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list for an organ transplant. As many as a few hundred of those patients are HIV-positive.

To address the extreme shortage of organs available for patients on the national transplant waiting list, four major organizations have joined forces to call for the end of the universal ban on transplants from HIV-infected deceased donors.

Lifting the ban, they hope, will allow HIV-positive patients quicker access to suitable organs. That, in turn, could ease the wait, however slightly, for everyone else on the list.

In July, the four groups -- the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and the United Network for Organ Sharing -- released a joint statement urging for a change in the law that prohibits the procurement of organs from HIV-positive people.

Getting rid of the ban, in place since the National Organ Transplant Act was amended in 1988 over fears of the transmission of AIDS, would allow for carefully designed and monitored research, including identification and transport safeguards to prevent accidental transplantation into uninfected recipients.

"We believe that, in the modern era of HIV care, a universal ban on transplants from HIV-infected donors may no longer be justified," the joint statement reads.

Additional research also is necessary to ascertain whether or not HIV-positive patients on the transplant waiting list could benefit from such organs, in turn shortening the overall waiting list.

An article published in the June 2011 issue of the American Journal of Transplantation estimated approximately 500 HIV-infected potential donors exist each year in the United States "with well-controlled HIV and causes of death compatible with organ donation" for kidney and liver transplants.

That number might be a bit optimistic, said Dr. John Fung, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Transplantation Center and chairman of the Clinic's Digestive Disease Institute. "But even if there are 10 donors, that would save 10 lives," he said.

Someone may ask, why even transplant organs into HIV-infected patients, given their complicated health history, when the waiting list is so long?

That question is moot, Fung said. "There aren't a lot of [HIV] patients, only 200 to 300 people in the country [on the list] at any one time. Every patient counts."

Even though antiretroviral and other medications have made it possible for HIV-positive people to have a longer, better quality of life, those waiting for a kidney, lung or other organ are more likely to die on the waiting list than someone not infected, simply because of the danger of having more compromised immune systems.

Those who do undergo a transplant are at risk of the virus becoming more unmanageable, said Dr. Dan Lebovitz, a pediatric critical care physician with Akron Children's Hospital and medical director for Lifebanc, the organ procurement organization for Northeast Ohio.

The Clinic performed the first heart transplant on an HIV-positive recipient in 2001. Since 2005, the Clinic has performed eight more transplants on HIV-positive patients. Seven have been liver transplants, and one was a combined liver/kidney transplant.

Other Ohio transplant centers have since performed surgery on HIV-positive patients as well.

In 2009, University Hospital in Cincinnati transplanted a kidney into an HIV-positive patient. Three other HIV-positive patients there are on the waiting list for a kidney. Since 2003, the hospital has performed liver transplants for two HIV-positive patients.

But when it comes to an HIV-positive person becoming an organ donor, the federal law has not budged in more than 20 years, even with the state of Illinois in 2004 becoming the first (and, so far, only) state to make it legal for HIV-positive people to donate organs to other HIV-positive people.

All potential donors are tested for HIV shortly after their death. If the person is found to have been infected with the virus, he or she is eliminated from consideration.

The organs of people who at the time of their death have active cancer, an active infection such as sepsis, or are known intravenous drug users also are rejected.

Because neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNOS nor AOPO keep track, no one can say how many potential organ donors are discovered to be HIV-positive each year in the United States.

"Within Northeast Ohio, it's a very infrequent phenomenon, but we have had positive tests to come back," Lebovitz said.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene disclosed this year that a patient contracted HIV in 2009 after undergoing a kidney transplant at an unnamed hospital. The donor had tested negative for HIV less than two weeks before the surgery. It was the first time since 1989 that a living donor infected a transplant recipient with the virus.

In 2007, four transplant recipients at three Chicago hospitals contracted HIV and hepatitis C from the same deceased organ donor whose HIV test had erroneously registered negative. It was the first known case of HIV transmission since 1985.

Publicity puts the pressure on

Those highly publicized cases underscore the need for strong public education surrounding any discussion about allowing HIV-positive people to be organ donors, said Tim Brown, president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and the executive director of Donor Network of Arizona.

"To me, they're separate issues, but this is going to push us into making sure that people are reassured [of their safety]," he said. Organs from HIV-positive donors, he stressed, would be separated from the general pool.

"[Any change in the law] is really dependent on the transplant surgeons themselves," Brown said. "You have an inherent risk when you're trying to recover organs or do surgery on an HIV-positive patient. The surgeon is always going to take into account the safety of their team. Some will be very comfortable. Some will give it a second thought."

Roughly 20 percent of the country's 250 transplant centers perform surgery on HIV-positive patients, said Dr. Bijan Eghtesad, a transplant surgeon who, like Fung, came to Cleveland from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a leader in treating HIV-positive organ recipients.

Those who are comfortable said they're ready to move forward.

"Our transplant program would support allowing HIV-positive donors to provide organs for HIV-positive recipients," said Dr. Paul Volek, director of Transplant, Dialysis & Metabolic Diseases at University Hospital in Cincinnati. "With advances in HIV therapy, the life expectancy of potential transplant recipients is commensurate with the expected kidney graft survival -- hence, we do not discriminate against this group of recipients for transplantation as our mission is to save lives; all lives."

Such a change won't be an easy one to accomplish, Fung said. But it is something he said he would support.

"This highlights the big issue: We need more organs," he said. "We need to get people to understand that a donor organ isn't something that we can manufacture. As long as there has been transplantation going on, there has been a donor shortage."

Another aspect awaits study

One aspect of research that can be studied only if the federal ban on HIV-positive organ donors is lifted is the effect on HIV-positive recipients, who could be at risk if given an organ from a donor with a more virulent serotype, or strain, of HIV that is very drug-resistant.

"By accepting that organ, I have no idea what kind of HIV I'm dealing with," Eghtesad of the Clinic said hypothetically. "I have no idea what kind of strength of HIV or what kind of genotype."

The challenge of collecting that information quickly from a deceased donor, when time is of the essence, could be insurmountable, he said.

But, Eghtesad said, if a patient is willing to be a living donor to give someone a kidney, "There's time, several months to evaluate a patient."

Until those challenges are removed, "I haven't been able to convince myself that I would offer [an organ from an HIV-positive donor] to a patient with HIV," he said.

One approach to lessen the risk of a recipient's status changing from HIV to AIDS, wrote Johns Hopkins University researchers in an article published this year in the American Journal of Transplantation, may be to use organs from "donors who were on HAART [a drug cocktail that stands for highly active antiretroviral therapy] and who were virologically suppressed for at least six months prior to donation," or from people who had not yet been treated for HIV -- people, perhaps, unaware of their HIV status.

In South Africa, researchers performed four kidney transplants in 2008 involving HIV-infected donors who had not undergone any antiretroviral therapy and who were otherwise healthy, and HIV-positive recipients. One year out, all four patients were doing well. The selection process and treatment were outlined in a letter that appeared in the June 17, 2010, New England Journal of Medicine.

"They showed that you can successfully transplant in a small number of patients," said Lebovitz of Lifebanc. A change in the law here could have a similar impact, he said.

"With the increasing disparity of the number of available organs versus the number of people on the [transplant] waiting list, it's important for those of us involved to look at potential opportunities to help these people," he said.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Cardiac gene therapy shows promise to save lives

By Marie McCullough, Inquirer Staff Writer

In recent months, researchers in Philadelphia and beyond have reported success using gene therapy to treat common, intractable cardiac problems including heart failure, hardened arteries, and the racing heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

You probably haven't heard about these feats because they were in pigs, dogs, or sheep.

In the most complex mammal of all - humans - the results of cardiac gene therapy experiments have been encouraging, but inconclusive.

That's not unusual in the early stages of clinical testing, but it is frustrating for the dogged researchers who believe the field is close to a breakthrough. They foresee genetic fixes for the cardiac problems we now treat with drugs, surgery, implantable electrical devices, and heart transplants.

"I think cardiac gene therapy has great promise," said Steven R. Houser, director of Temple University School of Medicine's cardiovascular research center. "I think you'll see lots of things over the next few years."

At least 146 human trials of heart gene therapies are going on worldwide, making cardiovascular disease second only to cancer in terms of clinical testing, according to the Journal of Gene Medicine.

The hopes - and the hurdles - are high.

A little background: Gene therapy harnesses the insidious ability of viruses to slip their DNA into the cells they infect. Scientists use these viral transporters, or "vectors," to deliver genes that carry helpful, rather than harmful, instructions. Those instructions, in turn, tell the cell to make the proteins that carry out biological functions, such as fighting infection, digesting food, and sending pain signals.

This beguiling approach is harder than it might sound. It's difficult to get a vector to home in on cells in a particular tissue, never mind the right spot in the cell's genome. It's also difficult to keep the body's immune system from attacking the invading vector before the therapeutic DNA has time to work.

Today, 21 years after the approach was first tried in humans, there is still no government-approved gene therapy product.

There are, however, some impressive successes*. Just last month, a Penn team led by Carl June reported that leukemia regressed or disappeared in the first three patients to try an immune-boosting gene therapy - amazing results for an early test. Gene therapy also has worked well against a rare form of blindness and against a deadly inherited immune deficiency disorder - each caused by defects in a single gene.

In contrast, heart diseases, like most chronic ailments, involve the combined effects of many faulty genes. A big hurdle has been finding one gene that can override or undercut these many genetic miscues.

In recent years, genes that regulate calcium have emerged as promising targets for the mother of all heart diseases - heart failure.

While calcium is popularly thought of as a bone-hardening mineral, it is also a powerful cell-signaling molecule, playing a role in everything from cell death to the contractions of the heart muscle.

Those contractions weaken when the heart is damaged by a heart attack, toxic chemicals, a leaky heart valve, or the many other problems that lead to heart failure.

Heart failure symptoms - breathlessness, fatigue, fluid buildup - can be managed with drugs and surgery. But the disorder tends to be chronic and progressive, leading to 280,000 deaths and a tab of $40 billion every year.

In studies using pigs and sheep, a therapy using a gene called SERCA2a clearly improved the contraction of the left ventricle, the heart's main pumping chamber.

In humans, the power of SERCA2a is not so clear. A clinical trial led by University of Pennsylvania cardiologist Mariell Jessup gave low, medium, or high doses of the gene therapy or a placebo to 39 patients with advanced heart failure.

Only the high-dose group seemed to benefit, emphasis on seemed. After six months, only one of the nine high-dose patients had worsening heart failure, although none had improvement in heart pumping.

"It looked like patients with the high dose did less poorly. They had less death and deterioration," Jessup said of the results, published in June in the journal Circulation. "There was a signal [of effectiveness]. Which is about the best we can say."

Celladon, the La Jolla, Calif., biotech company that is trying to raise money to keep developing the SERCA2a product it calls Mydicar, was decidedly more upbeat.

The frequency of death, hospitalizations, and heart transplant "was dramatically lower and sustained for patients on high-dose Mydicar compared with placebo," declared the company's news release. "Furthermore, patients' ability to exercise ... and quality of life all improved."

Houser, the Temple researcher, is not convinced that the therapeutic SERCA2a gene was ever activated in the patients.

"I've studied calcium my whole life. I'd love it to work," he said. "But I think the data is equivocal. I'm not sure it had any benefit."

Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson University researchers are developing a gene therapy that boosts a calcium-binding protein called S100A1. They believe it is even more promising than SERCA2a.

The S100A1 gene "seems to be like the coach of a football team" rather than just a player, said Jefferson physician Patrick Most, who has studied it for 15 years.

S100A1 is also involved in energy production, a crucial piece of the heart failure puzzle. The protein tells the cell's mitochondria - the so-called power plants that convert oxygen and food into energy-rich molecules - to step up production, Most said.

In June, Most and colleagues published a paper comparing S100A1 therapy to sham treatment in pigs with failing hearts. (A balloon catheter was used to block coronary blood flow, inducing a heart attack that led to heart failure in about two weeks.)

While the pigs that received fake treatment at two weeks were dead or dying within 14 weeks, pigs that received S100A1 not only stopped getting weaker, but their hearts' pumping ability went back to normal. "We did not expect such a dramatic response," Most said.

The researchers are now talking to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about trying S100A1 in humans.

Most said they're also discussing a clinical trial of another gene therapy that relieved heart failure in pigs by inhibiting stress-response hormones.

Large mammals are biologically much closer to humans than rodents. So why is it hard to make the therapeutic leap from large animals to humans?

One reason, researchers have come to realize, is that making a big animal sick - inducing a heart attack, say - sets up a different disease process than the natural one in sick humans.

Sometimes, man and animal share virtually the same disease. At the Penn veterinary school, Meg Sleeper and her colleagues have used gene therapy in dogs with a type of inherited cardiovascular disease that also afflicts children, raising hopes for a pediatric clinical trial.

But often, an animal breakthrough doesn't translate.

Consider the work of Crystal, the Weill Cornell researcher. He has spent much of his career seeking a gene therapy for cardiac ischemia - a dangerous reduction in the cardiac blood supply caused by clogging and hardening of the arteries.

Patients with widespread blockages can't be treated with surgery to bypass problem vessels or a stent that props open a few vessels. So Crystal's team focused on a gene that spurs the growth of new blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. "In experimental animal studies, it works very well," he said.

So well that in 1997, the drug company now called Pfizer signed a deal with a firm Crystal founded to develop "BioBypass." Industry analysts predicted the product would be generating $82 million in sales by 2005.

While the therapy did spur the growth of tiny vessels in human hearts, the growth did not improve heart pumping or exercise endurance.

Now Crystal is working on an angiogenesis gene therapy engineered to be "one-hundredfold more potent" than the body's natural version.

"We expect to start human trials in six to eight months," he said.

*NOTE - Lung transplantation and gene therapy
Dr. Shaf Keshavjee and his team in Toronto are having success using gene therapy to repair and recondition donor lungs for transplant. (currently only about 15% of donor lungs are usable due to tissue damage).

Working with pig and then human donor lungs, which were unsuitable for transplantation, the researchers first placed the lungs on the Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System to warm them to normal body temperature. Then, using a specially engineered adenovirus vector -- a common cold virus -- the researchers used a bronchoscope to inject the vector with an added IL-10 gene through the windpipe into the human lungs.

The study found that lungs maintained on the Toronto Lung Perfusion System alone, the control group, did not deteriorate and remained stable. However, the donor lungs that received the gene therapy, in addition to the ex vivo perfusion, significantly improved their function with regards to blood flow throughout the lungs and their ability to take in fresh oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide. The boosted IL-10 effect lasts for up to 30 days in the lung. The authors state that transplanting lungs which function better from the start would lead to more predictable, safer outcomes, shorter periods of mechanical ventilation and shorter intensive care unit stays for patients. Merv.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

MatchingDonors.com People Turn Online To Find Organ Matches

The Huffington Post Amanda Chan

For someone in need of a kidney transplant, the wait time for a compatible organ could last anywhere from five to 10 years on the government's donor list, the United Network for Organ Sharing, which only includes deceased donors.

That's why some patients are turning to organ match websites, like MatchingDonors.com, to search for a live, potential match online CBS News reported.

On MatchingDonors.com, both patients and donors set up profiles on the site. That way, donors can see patients who need organs, and patients can see who what donors are available. All organ donations on the site are altruistic, since payment for an organ is illegal.

So far, MatchingDonors.com has matched more than 150 patients with donors, according to CBS News, including Christine Jacobsen -- a mom of two with lupus nephritis, which causes kidney disease, who'd been waiting seven years for a kidney -- to Lee Goldberg -- who had wanted to donate her kidney to her uncle, who has since passed away, and wanted to help save a life.

A couple of years ago, TODAY reported the story of Michael Cleaves, whose radiation treatment for colon cancer destroyed his kidney function. Cleaves met his organ match, Nicholas Alo, on MatchingDonors.com.

Live donors are able to donate part or whole of four organs: a single kidney, because one kidney is able to do the work of two; a portion of the liver, because the liver is able to regenerate itself; a portion, or "lobe," of the lung, because the other lung lobes can expand in the body to replace the area that's been donated; and part of the pancreas, which is still able to function even if part of it is missing, according to MatchingDonors.com.

At the time of publication of this article, there were 2,118 potential donors registered on MatchingDonors.com.

Right now in the United States, there are more than 110,000 people who need an organ transplant, including 1,785 pediatric patients, according to Donate Life America. There were 28,663 organ transplants and 14,502 organ donors in 2010.

People are also turning to the more mainstream social media sites to find an organ match. CBS News reported earlier this year of Carlos Sanchez, who found a kidney match on Facebook. April Capone, of Connecticut, saw Sanchez's post for a kidney on her news feed, and reached out to him. Capone ended up being a match, and she gave one of her kidneys to Sanchez last year.

Ohio resident Priscilla Bidlake has also turned to Facebook to search for a match after being diagnosed with kidney failure, The Chronicle-Telegram reported. Bidlake's daughter created a Facebook page, Just One for Mom, to spread awareness.

Note for Canadian residents
In Canada, donors and patients waiting for a kidney transplant can join the Living Donor Paired Exchange (LDPE) Registry - Kidneys, by contacting their nearest hospital that has a Living Donor Kidney Transplant program. Merv.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! to become an organ and tissue donor
Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

New Zealand, register at Organ Donation New Zealand

Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca
other Canadian provinces

South Africa, http://www.odf.org.za/

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You