Neonatal kidney transplantation offers new hope in the organ shortage crisis, study shows
New research, presented today at the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) Congress 2023, demonstrates that neonatal kidney transplantation can offer a ‘game-changing’ solution to the pressing organ shortage crisis.
2023-09-17
(Press-News.org) (17 September 2023, Athens, Greece) New research, presented today at the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) Congress 2023, demonstrates that neonatal* kidney transplantation can offer a ‘game-changing’ solution to the pressing organ shortage crisis. 1
To assess the feasibility of neonatal organ donation, researchers analysed neonatal mortality in the United States and the long-term development of these kidneys after transplantation as well as the ethical and social considerations surrounding the procedure. 1
The study revealed that out of the 21,000 infants who lost their lives in 2020, more than 12,000 could have been considered as viable organ donors. 1
The organ shortage is one of the greatest challenges facing the field of organ transplantation. As of January 2022, there were 100,000 patients on the waiting list for kidney transplantation in the US, with just 24,669 kidneys transplanted in the previous year. Alarmingly, this donor pool shortage contributed to the deaths of 5000 patients on the waiting list. 1
This crisis is not unique to the US. Across Europe, organ supplies cannot meet the increasing demand, and annually an average of 15–30% of patients on waitlists die. 2 As human life expectancy increases whilst chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity and liver disease become more prevalent, there is an increased need for transplants and a reduction in the number of available organs. 3
In 2018, kidneys were the most frequently transplanted organ across the EU, accounting for over 60% of all transplants. 4 Previous research has confirmed the viability of transplanting kidneys from paediatric donors into adults. 5 Notably, neonatal kidneys have demonstrated catch-up growth and excellent long-term performance (>25 years), exceeding that of living donors. Current transplantation techniques have also proved to be safe and effective for neonatal kidneys. 1
Dr Dai Nghiem, lead author of the study, comments, “We believe that neonatal kidney transplantation offers a ‘game-changing’ solution to the organ shortage crisis. This study looked at the US alone, but if you replicate the findings across the globe then we have a huge untapped pool of available organs that can be used for transplants.”
“Understandably, paediatric organ donation presents distinct ethical and social challenges compared to adult donation”, added Dr Dai Nghiem. “For families and caregivers, making the decision to donate can be an incredibly tough process, especially the organs of their newborn. There is also a concern amongst the transplant community about the difficulty of the procedure along with its experimental nature. Through the exchange of experience among pioneering centres, we hope to address these concerns, foster acceptance of this forgotten source of organ donors and ultimately save more lives through organ transplantation.”
Professor Gabriel Oniscu, ESOT President Elect and Co-Chair of the ESOT Congress 2023, adds, “While recognising the highly emotive nature of this issue and the ongoing ethical and legal considerations, the study’s findings underscore the importance of acknowledging neonates as potential organ donors. To achieve this, it is imperative that every European country has dedicated paediatric donation protocols in place that encompass neonatal organ donation procedures. This proactive approach aims to heighten awareness among Neonatal Intensive Care Unit professionals regarding the possibilities of neonatal donation, promoting discussions with parents that could help save many lives.”
END
*Key terms:
Neonatal: Newborn, or the first 28 days of life.
Note to editors:
A reference to the ESOT Congress 2023 must be included in all coverage and/or articles associated with this study.
For more information or to arrange an expert interview, please contact Luke Paskins on luke.paskins@emotiveagency.com or press@esot.org.
About the study author:
Dr Dai D Nghiem is a surgery specialist practicing in Garden Grove, California. Dr Nghiem was a Professor of Surgery at Drexel University and Director, Division of Transplantation at Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA. Dr Nghiem has published 235 papers and presented 139 abstracts at 94 exhibits in the US, Europe and Asia.
Dr Nghiem is known for developing the procedure of whole pancreas transplantation with a segment of duodenum draining into the bladder, thus avoiding the infectious complications plaguing the operation, and allowing the diagnosis of pancreatic rejection by monitoring the urinary amylase levels and the cystoscopic duodenal biopsies. He also is recognised for the technique of en bloc transplantation, using the donor aorta and vena cava to simplify the operative technique and shorten operative time. These innovations have extended the use of limited organ supply and provided transplantation to many patients who may never otherwise received this ‘gift of life’.
About Professor Gabriel Oniscu:
Professor Gabriel Oniscu is the ESOT President Elect and Co-Chair of the ESOT Congress 2023. He is the Director of the Edinburgh Transplant Centre. Professor Oniscu has a clinical interest in liver, pancreas and kidney transplantation and laparoscopic surgery, performing laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy and polycystic kidney nephrectomy.
About ESOT:
ESOT was founded 40 years ago and is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in organ transplantation. Facilitating a wealth of international clinical trials and research collaborations over the years, ESOT remains committed to its primary aim of improving patient outcomes in transplantation. With a community of over 8000 members from around the world, ESOT is an influential international organisation and the facilitator of the biennial congress which hosts approximately 3500 experts who come to meet to explore and discuss the latest scientific research.
References:
Nghiem D. Neonatal organ donation for kidney shortage; Is this the time? Presented at the European Society for Organ Transplantation Congress; 17 September 2023; Athens, Greece.
Lewis A, et al. Organ donation in the US and Europe: The supply vs demand imbalance. Transplant Rev (Orlando). 2021;35(2):100585.
Levitt M. Could the organ shortage ever be met? Life Sci Soc Policy. 2015;11:6.
Scholz N. European Parliament. Organ donation and transplantation: Facts, figures and European Union action. 2020. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/649363/EPRS_BRI(2020)649363_EN.pdf (Accessed: August 2023).
Ratner LE, et al. Transplantation of single and paired pediatric kidneys into adult recipients.
J Am Coll Surg. 1997;185(5):437–445.
Nghiem DD. En bloc transplantation of kidneys from donors less than 15 kg into adult recipients. J Urol 1991, 145:14-17.
Nghiem DD, Schlosser JD, Nghiem HG. En bloc transplantation of Infant Kidneys. Ten-Year Experience. J Am Coll. Surg 1998, 186: 402-407.
Nghiem DD. Pull-through Ureteroneocystostomy for Very Small En Bloc Kidney Transplantation from Donors Weighing < 5 kg. Uro 2022,2:102-108. END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2023-09-17
(17 September 2023, Athens, Greece) Islet transplantation significantly reduces the risk of transplantation failure and enhances life expectancy in individuals with type 1 diabetes who undergo kidney transplantation, a new study has revealed. 1
This breakthrough research, presented today at the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) Congress 2023, compared the long-term outcomes of patients with type 1 diabetes who underwent kidney transplantation and received an islet transplantation*, with patients who underwent kidney transplantation and then managed their diabetes with insulin ...
2023-09-16
In a recent article published in Volume 3 of the journal Psychoradiology, researchers from Northwestern Polytechnical University have unveiled the groundbreaking "Attention-CensNet" (A-CensNet), a fusion model that predicts cognitive scores by amalgamating movie-watching functional magnetic resonance imaging (mfMRI) and eye-tracking data. In this model, participants serve as nodes, mfMRI data are translated into node features, and eye-tracking details forge the connections between participants, creating graph edges. By employing ...
2023-09-16
Fatty liver disease is a condition characterised by a build-up of fat in the liver and is the most common chronic liver disease that affects over one billion people. Over time, this can lead to complications including cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, and heart health issues. The disease is now known as metabolic (dysfunction) associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). This is because the disease is now understood to be linked to metabolic factors, such as obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes.
MAFLD is a multisystem disorder with a heterogeneous disease course and outcomes. This means that it can affect multiple organs, and the course of the disease can vary from person ...
2023-09-16
Most artificially intelligent systems are based on neural networks, algorithms inspired by biological neurons found in the brain. These networks can consist of multiple layers, with inputs coming in one side and outputs going out of the other. The outputs can be used to make automatic decisions, for example, in driverless cars. Attacks to mislead a neural network can involve exploiting vulnerabilities in the input layers, but typically only the initial input layer is considered when engineering a defense. For the first time, researchers augmented a neural network’s inner layers with a process involving random noise to improve its resilience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) ...
2023-09-16
Scientists have used genomics to reveal distinct sexual networks for syphilis transmission, defined geographically or by sexual preference, among a background of wider circulation in England. They also show a presence of drug resistance in the majority of cases.
By grouping closely related strains of the bacterium that causes syphilis – Treponema pallidum –, researchers demonstrate how a large number of cases are linked together. Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their collaborators at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)* sequenced ...
2023-09-15
Images
Highlights:
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, or DOE-SC, is investing in machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to accelerate the speed of research and development in nuclear science. Michigan State University researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, are leading five of these new grant projects.
These projects aim to enhance the breadth of FRIB’s activities, covering nuclear physics experiments and theory, as well as particle accelerator operations.
FRIB is a DOE-SC user facility, meaning that these advances will serve ...
2023-09-15
The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center announced today that it has earned a National Cancer Institute “Comprehensive” Cancer Center designation, the highest level of recognition awarded by the NCI. Markey is the first and only center in Kentucky to achieve this designation, and the next-closest Comprehensive Cancer Center is nearly 200 miles from Lexington. There are currently only 72 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers in the country, and 56 of those are Comprehensive Cancer Centers.
As the federal government’s principal ...
2023-09-15
Ratings on platforms such as Yelp and TripAdvisor can greatly impact high-priced New York City restaurants that service tourists, but have less of an effect on restaurants frequented by “locals” outside of tourist areas, according to new Cornell research.
“In neighborhoods frequented by ‘locals,’ the advent and expansion of internet-based ratings platforms did not result in greater disparities in restaurant sales despite how ubiquitous they are and how frequently we anecdotally use them,” said Jason Greenberg, associate ...
2023-09-15
The feel of a cat’s fur can reveal some information, but seeing the feline provides critical details: is it a housecat or a lion? While the sound of fire crackling may be ambiguous, its scent confirms the burning wood. Our senses synergize to give a comprehensive understanding, particularly when individual signals are subtle. The collective sum of biological inputs can be greater than their individual contributions. Robots tend to follow more straightforward addition, but Penn State researchers have now harnessed the biological concept for application in artificial intelligence (AI) to develop ...
2023-09-15
Genetically speaking, we are individuals different from each other because of slight variations in our DNA sequences – so-called genetic variants – some of which have dramatic effects we can see and comprehend, from the color of our eyes to our risk for developing schizophrenia – a debilitating psychiatric condition affecting many millions worldwide. For several years, scientists have studied the entire genomes of thousands of people – called genome-wide association studies, or GWAS – to find approximately 5,000 genetic variants associated with schizophrenia.
Now, ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Neonatal kidney transplantation offers new hope in the organ shortage crisis, study shows
New research, presented today at the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) Congress 2023, demonstrates that neonatal kidney transplantation can offer a ‘game-changing’ solution to the pressing organ shortage crisis.
