Skin Transplant Offers New Hope for Vitiligo Patients

Released: 5/30/2012 11:30 AM EDT  Source: Henry Ford Health System
Newswise — DETROIT – Henry Ford Hospital dermatologists say skin transplant surgery is safe and effective for restoring skin pigmentation caused by the skin disease vitiligo.

In a first study of its kind in the United States, researchers followed 23 patients for up to six months after surgery and found that the treated area regained on average 43 percent of its natural skin color. In eight patients with localized vitiligo, the treated area regained on average 68 percent of its natural skin color.

The surgery involves using skin cells taken from healthy, normally pigmented areas of the body and transferring them to the damaged area of skin. It is performed under local anesthesia.

The study is published in the May edition of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. It is available online athttp://www.eblue.org/article/S0190-9622(11)00527-5/abstract.

“The results achieved in our study were of obvious significance to our patients,” says Iltefat Hamzavi, M.D., a senior staff physician in Henry Ford’s Department of Dermatology and the study’s senior author and principal investigator. “We believe this new treatment option offers hope to patients of color and those with vitiligo on one side of the body or in one area of the body.”

Vitiligo is a skin disease that causes the skin to lose color and develop white patches that vary in size and location. It affects about 1 in every 200 people in the United States, and is more noticeable in people with darker skin. Standard treatments include light therapy and topical medications.

Vitiligo develops when cells called melanocytes are killed by the body’s immune system, causing the area of skin to turn white because the cells no longer make pigment. While there is no cure, vitiligo can be treated and managed with light therapy, creams and topical medications.

The surgery is known as melanocyte-keratinocyte transplantation, or MKTP, and is performed in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It was performed at Henry Ford using the same technique developed by MKTP pioneer Sanjeev Mulekar, M.D., of the National Vitiligo Center in Saudi Arabia. Henry Ford is the first to perform MKTP in North America.

In Henry Ford’s study, 28 patients underwent surgery and ranged in age from 18 to 60. A total of 36 MKTP procedures were performed and researchers analyzed the outcomes of 29 of them. The procedure lasted 30 minutes to two hours and patients returned home the same day.

Of the 28 surgery patients, 23 were followed for up to six months after surgery. Eighteen patients received one treatment, four patients received two and one patient received three. The ethnicity of patients was Caucasian, South Asian, African American and Hispanic.

During MKTP, melanocyte cells, which produce pigment in the skin, hair and eyes, are harvested from an area of healthy skin and separated to make a skin cell mixture. This mixture then is applied to the treatment area and covered with a specially developed adhesive biologic dressing.

Treated areas included the hands, arms, legs, feet, face and stomach. The average size of the treated area during each procedure was 46 cm2, or roughly the size of a credit card.

The study was a collaboration between Henry Ford and the National Center for Vitiligo, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and funded by the Shahani Foundation based in Michigan.

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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.

For Transplant, Smoker's Lung Beats No Lung

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner.

Patients who need a lung transplant are better off receiving organs from a deceased smoker than staying on the waiting list, British researchers reported.

They will not live as long as those who get lungs from non-smokers, but they will outlive patients who stay on waiting lists, reported Robert Bonser, MD, of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust in Birmingham, England.

The issue has been controversial in Britain after media reports of death following transplantation of lungs from smokers, the researchers reported online in The Lancet.

But the policy of using such lungs saves lives and "should be continued," Bonser and colleagues concluded after studying outcomes of 1,295 lung transplants from July 1, 1999 to Dec. 31, 2010.

The U.S. also uses lungs from smokers, according to Norman Edelman, MD, chief medical officer for the American Lung Association. He told the Associated Press that most donated organs have some defect and a history of smoking is just another factor that needs consideration.

"There is rarely an 'ideal' organ available," Edelman said.

On the other hand, the balance of risks can vary from country to country and center to center, argued Marcelo Cypel, MD, and Shaf Keshavjee, MD, both of the University Health Network in Toronto.

In an accompanying comment article, they added that the damage to donor lungs caused by smoking can be "quite variable" and it might be that only lungs from a subgroup are causing the lower survival rates after transplant.

"By contrast," they argued, "unaffected lungs from donors with positive smoking histories could potentially lead to similar outcomes to those noted in patients receiving lungs from non-smoking donors."

That issue was not addressed in the study, they noted.

Based on data from the U.K. Transplant Registry and Office of National Statistics, Bonser and colleagues reported, there were 2,181 people registered on the waiting lists during the 11.5-year study period and 1,295 lung transplants (880 double and 415 single) from 1,221 donors.

Of those, 510 -- or 39% -- used lungs from donors who had smoked.

The key finding was that recipients of such lungs had worse three-year survival than those who got lungs from non-smokers (adjusted HR 1.36, 95% CI 1.11 to 1.67, P=0.003).

On the other hand, of 2,181 patients on the waiting list, 802 (or 37%) died or were removed from the list without receiving a transplant, Bonser and colleagues reported.

The figures yielded a lower unadjusted hazard of death after registration for those who accepted lungs from smokers than for those who remained on the waiting list (HR 0.79, 95% CI 0.70 to 0.91,P=0.0004).

The effect was even more pronounced for recipients suffering from septic lung disease and fibrosis, where the hazard ratios were 0.60 and 0.39, respectively.

Bonser and colleagues noted that donors with a history of smoking account for 39% of the lungs available for transplant in the U.K. "Rejection of this donor-organ resource would increase waiting-list mortality and is ill-advised," they argued.

One consequence of using lungs from people who had smoked is that the risk and benefits need to be carefully explained to recipients, they cautioned.

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

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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.

Illegal kidney trade booms as new organ is 'sold every hour'
By Denis Campbell and Nicola Davison guardian.co.uk

The illegal trade in kidneys has risen to such a level that an estimated 10,000 black market operations involving purchased human organs now take place annually, or more than one an hour, World Health Organisation experts have revealed.

Evidence collected by a worldwide network of doctors shows that traffickers are defying laws intended to curtail their activities and are cashing in on rising international demand for replacement kidneys driven by the increase in diabetes and other diseases.

Patients, many of whom will go to China, India or Pakistan for surgery, can pay up to $200,000 (nearly £128,000) for a kidney to gangs who harvest organs from vulnerable, desperate people, sometimes for as little as $5,000.

The vast sums to be made by both traffickers and surgeons have been underlined by the arrest by Israeli police last week of 10 people, including a doctor, suspected of belonging to an international organ trafficking ring and of committing extortion, tax fraud and grievous bodily harm. Other illicit organ trafficking rings have been uncovered in India and Pakistan.

The Guardian contacted an organ broker in China who advertised his services under the slogan, "Donate a kidney, buy the new iPad!" He offered £2,500 for a kidney and said the operation could be performed within 10 days.

The resurgence of trafficking has prompted the WHO to suggest that humanity itself is being undermined by the vast profits involved and the division between poor people who undergo "amputation" for cash and the wealthy sick who sustain the body parts trade.

"The illegal trade worldwide was falling back in about 2006-07 – there was a decrease in 'transplant tourism'," said Luc Noel, a doctor and WHO official who runs a unit monitoring trends in legitimate and underground donations and transplants of human organs. But he added: "The trade may well be increasing again. There have been recent signs that that may well be the case. There is a growing need for transplants and big profits to be made. It's ever growing, it's a constant struggle. The stakes are so big, the profit that can be made so huge, that the temptation is out there."

Lack of law enforcement in some countries, and lack of laws in others, mean that those offering financial incentives to poor people to part with a kidney have it too easy, Noel said.

Kidneys make up 75% of the global illicit trade in organs, Noel estimates. Rising rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems are causing demand for kidneys to far outstrip supply.

Data from the WHO shows that of the 106,879 solid organs known to have been transplanted in 95 member states in 2010 (legally and illegally), about 73,179 (68.5%) were kidneys. But those 106,879 operations satisfied just 10% of the global need, the WHO said.

The organisation does not know how many cases involved the organ being obtained legitimately from a deceased donor or living donor such as a friend or relative of the recipient.

But Noel believes that one in 10 of those 106,879 organs was probably procured by black marketeers. If so, that would mean that organ gangs profited almost 11,000 times in 2010.

Proof of illegal trafficking is being collected by networks of doctors in various countries known as "custodian groups". The groups work to support the Declaration of Istanbul, the 2008 statement against global organ exploitation that was agreed by almost 100 nations.

Made up of hospital specialists who treat patients with end-stage kidney failure who survive on dialysis, and surgeons who operate on those lucky enough to get a new kidney, the groups monitor reports of black market activity in their own country or involving compatriots abroad.

A medical source with knowledge of the situation said: "While commercial transplantation is now forbidden by law in China, that's difficult to enforce; there's been a resurgence there in the last two or three years.

"Foreigners from the Middle East, Asia and sometimes Europe come and are paying $100,000 to $200,000 for a transplant. Often they are Chinese expats or patients of Chinese descent."

Some of China's army hospitals were believed to be carrying out the transplants, the source added.

The persistence of the trade is embarrassing for China. The health ministry in Beijing has outlawed it and has also promised to stop harvesting organs from executed prisoners by 2017, a practice that has brought international condemnation.

Jim Feehally, a professor of renal medicine at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, said: "Since the Declaration of Istanbul the law on trafficking has been changed in the Philippines – which was one of the centres of transplant tourism – and the Chinese government realises that things have to change." Feehally is also president of the International Society of Nephrology, which represents 10,000 specialist kidney doctors worldwide. "Trafficking is still continuing – it's likely that it is increasing," he said. "We know of countries in Asia, and also in eastern Europe, which provide a market so that people who need a kidney can go there and buy one."

The key issue, Feehally said, was exploitation. "You are exploiting a donor if they are very poor and you are giving them a very small amount of money and no doctor is caring for them afterwards, which is what happens.

"The people who gain are the rich transplant patients who can afford to buy a kidney, the doctors and hospital administrators, and the middlemen, the traffickers. It's absolutely wrong, morally wrong."

Noel wants countries to defeat the traffickers by maximising the supply of organs from deceased and living donors, and encouraging healthy lifestyles to stop people getting conditions such as diabetes in the first place.

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

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

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Canada - Ontario beadonor.ca other Canadian provinces

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

United States, donatelife.net

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.

Hélène Campbell dances after double-lung transplant

I watched Hélène's news conference and was in awe of the way she looked after only 7 weeks post double-lung transplant. With great composure she showed that she is a gifted and articulate speaker as she told her story and fielded questions with enthusiasm. CTV News provided full coverage of the conference and posted a story on the web. Watch the CTV Video and read the story.

Hélène dances with Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program and her mother Manon

Hélène was diagnosed with IPF or Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis last October and received her double-lung transplant April 6, 2012. Her discharge date was Friday, May 4, 2012 but she was re-admitted briefly with shortness of breath and has since been doing very well. She gained world-wide awareness for organ and tissue donation when Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres responded to her twitter campaign. She did a Skype appearance with Ellen today who invited her to appear in person on the show when she is able to travel. See coverage of Hélène's 6-minute chat with Ellen in this Toronto Sun article with photo.   Watch videos of this and other appearances at alungstory.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Canadian PM awards Hélène Campbell Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wife Laureen stopped by Campbell's Toronto home to personally pin the medal on her lapel.

Harper says she is receiving this honor for her courage and her tremendous work in raising awareness for organ donation. "She has been a great inspiration to many Canadians and people have seen her worldwide."

Hélène was diagnosed with IPF or Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis last October and received her double-lung transplant April 6, 2012. Her discharge date was Friday, May 4, 2012 but she was re-admitted briefly with shortness of breath and has since been doing very well. She gained world-wide awareness for organ and tissue donation when Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres responded to her twitter campaign. Read updates at alungstory.

Hélène will also be holding a press conference in Toronto today.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Top honor to cardiologist for advancing heart transplant medicine

By John Sanford Stanford School of Medicine

How do you keep a heart-transplant recipient alive and healthy for the long term?

That was the challenge taking shape by the mid-1970s, when Sharon Hunt, MD, was a cardiology fellow at Stanford Hospital. Meeting that challenge has since defined her career and earned her one of the most prestigious awards in the field of heart-transplantation medicine: the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation award for lifetime achievement, which she accepted in April in Prague.

Cardiologist Sharon Hunt received in April a lifetime achievement award from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. Photo: Norbert von der Groeben

 “It’s the biggest honor I’ve ever had,”

Hunt said. Hunt arrived at Stanford as a first-year medical student in the fall of 1967. A few months later, Stanford cardiac surgeon Norman Shumway, MD, and his team performed the first adult human heart transplantation in the United States. The success of that feat (the patient survived 14 days) inspired other heart surgeons across the nation to try their hand at the operation. However, most recipients survived just a few weeks or months, and an unofficial moratorium on the procedure went into effect in 1970. Over the next decade, Shumway’s team, which ignored the moratorium, made steady progress in refining its surgical techniques, introducing the heart biopsy for assessment of acute organ rejection and determining the viability of hearts procured and then transported to a transplant center. By 1974, 40 percent of their patients were living for two years, and 26 percent were making it to three years.

“By the time I was finishing cardiology training, in 1977, the survival rates for transplant patients were getting to be substantial,” said Hunt, a cardiologist at Stanford Hospital & Clinics and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the School of Medicine. “The surgeons had always claimed care of these patients, but with longer survival rates they were getting opportunistic infections and other medical problems — things the surgeons didn’t want to deal with. So they started looking to cardiology trainees to supply medical care. Like lots of people in advanced medical training, I was looking for a niche, and this one looked promising.”

Hunt remained at Stanford after her fellowship in 1981 as a clinical assistant professor, forging a path in this burgeoning field. Since then, key advances in long-term postoperative care for heart recipients have stemmed largely from her research and clinical work.

“Even after the surgical technique for heart transplantation had been developed and operations had been done, the field was naïve: People didn’t know how to manage patients,” said cardiologist Michael Pham, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine. “How do you manage patients who will be on immunosuppressive medications for the rest of their lives? How do you balance the benefit of these drugs with their toxicities? How do you identify and treat patients who reject their transplanted hearts? These are some of the questions that Sharon has done more than anyone to answer.”

Indeed, heart-transplant patients face a host of diseases and complications that can set back or snuff out their delicate new lease on life. These are diseases such as cardiac allograft vasculopathy, in which the walls of the coronary arteries become thicker, obstructing blood flow; infection, cancer and kidney failure, all abetted by the powerful immunosuppressant that recipients take to prevent rejection; and many other complications, including high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

“Without Sharon, who took care of these transplant patients after figuring out their medications and complications, there would be no successful cardiac transplantation at all,” said Alan Yeung, MD, chief of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford Hospital and the Li Ka Shing Professor in Cardiology. Heart recipients’ survival rates have vastly improved since the early days of transplants. At Stanford, the three-year survival rate was 78 percent for adults receiving a first heart transplant between 2006 and 2008, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Patients.

The lifetime achievement award also recognizes Hunt for having trained many international leaders in the field of post-transplant cardiology. She has made significant scientific contributions (she has authored or co-authored close to 200 peer-reviewed articles); headed the recent development of international guidelines on the care of heart-transplant recipients; and helped pave the way to the certification of the subspecialty in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation has given only five lifetime achievement awards in its 31-year history. Two have gone to Hunt’s late Stanford colleagues and mentors, Shumway and Margaret Billingham, MD, a renowned cardiac pathologist. The others went to Sir Magdi Yacoub, MD, an Egyptian-born cardiothoracic surgeon, and the late Keith Reemtsma, MD, a pioneering transplant surgeon. 

Among dozens of other accomplishments, Hunt has also served as chair of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Guidelines Committee to Rewrite Heart Failure Guidelines, which Pham called “probably the most commonly quoted guidelines ever in the field of cardiovascular medicine,” and as associate editor of the textbook Hurst’s The Heart and the Journal of Cardiac Failure.

“Through the years, she has just been incredibly productive. Her trainees comprise the leaders and experts in the field of heart transplant cardiology around the world,” said Bruce Reitz, MD, the Stanford cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the first successful heart-lung transplant. “She’s also a wonderful colleague — the ideal colleague — who is very responsive, with solutions and suggestions that are very helpful. You know that when a patient is under her care, that patient is getting the absolute best care.”

Hunt said the two things she likes most about her job are mentoring cardiology fellows and taking care of patients, “though I still don’t like reading EKGs or being on-call all night”

What about her next steps? “I think I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for the next few years,” she said. John Sanford is a writer in the communications office at Stanford Hospital & Clinics. Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

For more information, please visit the Office of Communication & Public Affairs site at http://mednews.stanford.edu/.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Stem Cell Transplant Patients Show Long Term Improvement

By Live Science Staff

An injection of a patient's own stem cells seems to help heal spinal cord injury in the long run, new research suggests. Thirty percent of stem cell therapy patients showed significant functional or other improvements after 6 months.

This study, following after an initial report of results on six patients, is the first attempt at direct spinal injection of a patient's own stem cells for the treatment of spinal cord injury in humans. The latest data was reported in the May 2012 issue of the journal Neurosurgery.

The stem cell transplantation was performed in 10 patients with permanent movement problems or paralysis after spinal cord injury. The researchers transplanted stem cells cultured from each patient's own bone marrow, grew them in the lab into spinal cord cells, and injected them into the patient's back.

The researchers monitored the patients for improvement in their ability to move their arms and hands and to perform key activities of daily living. Imaging scans and tests of muscle activity were performed as well. 

Three of the patients showed "continuous and gradual motor improvement," the authors write. In three more patients, the improvement was detectable, but less drastic.

Six months after their injections, 60 percent of patients showed improvement in motor power of the arms and hands. Of these, three patients had gradual improvement in the ability to perform daily activities — for example, preparing meals and typing on a keyboard.

These three patients also showed significant changes in the spinal cord, including evidence of healing around the injured area of the spine. They also had improvement in studies of their muscle activity.

These 3 patients that showed the most improvement came into the trial with "residual neurological function," the authors write. This could mean that the treatment "is more likely to enhance the remaining neurological function rather than regeneration."

They call for further studies to understand the mechanism of improvement after MSC treatment and to clarify which patients with spinal cord injury are most likely to benefit.

Additionally, the results support the safety of these blood marrow stem cells for use in treatments.

The report shows not only the promise of stem cell treatments, but their safety. None of the ten patients had any permanent complications related to the transplantation. This helps to alleviate concerns that stem cell injection could lead to later problems like the development of tumors or calcifications.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Drummer lung recipient organizes musical fundraiser for CF

By Andrfew Korner The Queensland Times
NOT only is Raceview teenager Brandon Sanewski breathing a lot easier since a double lung transplant saved his life a year ago, but he is also free to chase his passion in life.

The 19-year-old was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a baby and increasingly struggled with associated health problems as he matured.

By the time he'd reached the age of 18, Brandon had lost 70 per cent of his lung function and was struggling with normal daily activities.

This included his favourite pastime - playing the drums - which left him feeling depressed as well as dying.

"I couldn't breathe. The doctors told me that I had the lungs of someone who had been suffering CF for 30 years," Brandon said.

Brandon's mum Tracey recalled how the mucus that had taken over her son's lungs was causing him to cough 24 hours a day.

"The mucus is that thick in the lungs that it affects the digestive system and the body is unable to digest fat," she said.

"Before his transplant, Brandon had stopped eating and required a machine to breathe."

Brandon finally joined the transplant register on Christmas Eve, 2010, but would receive two crushing false alarms and almost die before getting a lifeline in May last year.

Doctors at the Prince Charles Hospital placed Brandon on the 48-hour nationwide alert for a transplant and a matching pair of lungs was found the next day.

"I remember waking up from surgery... mum was about the most excited I had ever heard her and she said, 'You've got your new lungs!'," he said.

Brandon's health was so much better for the double lung transplant that he was able to get back into playing the drums and this year he joined his new band, "Payne Rd".

Brandon and the band will be part of the "Breathe Easy" all-ages concert - organised by his family to raise funds for the Prince Charles Hospital Cystic Fibrosis Unit and the Queensland Lung Transplant Research Centre.

Breathe Easy gig

To be held at Ipswich CWA Hall on May 26 from 5pm

Bands include Payne Rd, Awaken I Am, Dollarosa, The Break of Dawn and Ryan Dingle

Entry $5, all proceeds go to the PCH CF Unit and the Lung Transplant Research Centre

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Aussie teenager Shaun Wilson-Miller's dying wish is to make the most of life

News.com.au

A TEENAGER has recorded an emotional 

goodbye video after being told  by doctors he will soon die, 

telling friends and family he has had "an awesome ride".

And he had one final wish for his loved ones - please look after his dad.

Shaun Wilson-Miller, 17, suffers from a chronic heart condition and medical experts have told the Melbourne teen he does not have long to live.

His body has not accepted his second heart transplant and doctors told him he could not undergo a third.

The brave battler used the online video to urge his friends to make the most out of life.

"Hi guys, I have some bad news I have to tell you all," he said in the video which has been viewed by people all over the world.

"I won't be here for as long as I thought but I want to say this has been an awesome ride and I have no regrets.

"Live life to the fullest because you never know what's going to happen."

Watch the video in full below

The teen, who became a Heart Kids Ambassador at the age of 13, said he loved his family and friends and would miss them but didn't want them to cry for him. He had one request: "I do ask all my friends to make sure my dad will be OK."

Shaun has been inspiring kids as a motivational speaker and is also writing a book describing his journey.

In a 2009 newspaper interview he told of his desire to overcome his serious health problems: "I just keep positive in everything I do and everything comes out the best for me."

Shaun decided to make his heart-wrenching video to spread a positive message and to encourage people to deal with whatever life throws at them.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.

Obesity May Contribute to Organ Shortage

This story speaks for itself. I knew from the start how important a healthy lifestyle is to a successful organ transplant. I've been watching my diet and exercising regularly since my lung transplant ten years ago and my BMI (Body Mass Index) is 19.  Transplant recipients and living donors must have body weights of acceptable limits. As this study notes, almost one-quarter of potential living donors were excluded because their BMI was over 35. 

By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

WASHINGTON -- The pool of potential living kidney donors may be shrinking because of the national obesity "epidemic," researchers said here.

In a single-center study, almost a quarter of willing donors were initially excluded because they were too heavy, Mala Sachdeva, MD, of North Shore-LIJ Health System Transplant Center on Long Island, N.Y., and colleagues reported at the National Kidney Foundation meeting here.

And only a small percentage of those patients were ultimately able to lose enough weight to donate a kidney, despite their initial motivation, Sachdeva said at the group's poster presentation.

Although there are no established national criteria, most centers exclude living donors who have a body mass index (BMI) of 35 or above, because previous work has shown poorer outcomes for both donor and recipient.

Thus, America's expanding waistlines may be playing a role in the national organ shortage by shrinking the donor pool, the researchers said. Currently, about 92,000 patients are waiting for a kidney, Sachdeva added.

She and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 104 potential living kidney donors seen at their institution between 2008 and 2011. Only 18% had a BMI considered to be within the normal range (25 or below), while the majority fell into the overweight-to-obese category: 37% had a BMI between 25 and 30, the rest had a BMI of 30 or above.

Almost a quarter (22%) of potential donors were excluded from giving up their organs because they had a BMI of 35 or above, the researchers reported. These patients were then referred to a counselor from the institution who creates an individual diet and lifestyle modification plan and follows up with these patients on a monthly basis.

Only three donors (13%), however, were able to lose enough weight to donate: "That's not a lot of success, even though the motivation was there," Sachdeva said.

About a third of these patients (30%) were unsuccessful at losing weight. The rest declined for medical reasons (9%), decided not to donate (26%), were lost to follow-up (13%), or didn't end up donating for other reasons (9%).

Sachdeva said interventions should target the patients who had the motivation to lose weight but couldn't. Clinicians can refer them to an outside weight loss program, or to a gastric banding procedure if they're eligible, she said.

Transplant centers also can implement more rigorous weight reduction programs, with greater follow-up and peer support, she said, adding that more research is needed to figure out which weight loss approaches are most successful.

NKF president Lynda Szczech, MD, said in a statement that the study points out "the impact of obesity as a barrier to donation."

"As the kidney transplant waiting list grows, there is a great need for living donors," Szczech said in the statement. "As a community, we need to identify ways to overcome this barrier so that we can increase our donor pool and end the wait for transplant."

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – to become an organ and tissue donor Sign-up today! 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, donatelife.net

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.