PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Successful kidney transplantation despite tissue incompatibility

Results comparable with regular transplantation/Published in Transplantation

Successful kidney transplantation despite tissue incompatibility
2010-10-13
(Press-News.org) Donor kidneys can be successfully transplanted even if there is strong tissue incompatibility between donor and recipient. An interdisciplinary working group headed by Dr. Christian Morath, senior consultant at the Department of Nephrology at Heidelberg University Hospital (Medical Director: Professor Dr. Martin Zeier) and Professor Dr. Caner Süsal, head of antibody laboratory in the Department of Transplantation Immunology, showed in a study of 34 sensitized high-risk patients that the success rate in these patients was not different from the success rate of patients with a low immunological risk. After one year, around 95 percent of the transplants were still functioning. The researchers in Heidelberg developed a sophisticated therapy concept especially for this group of high-risk patients. This makes the transplantation center in Heidelberg the leading center in Germany in this area. The results of the study were published in the prestigious journal "Transplantation".

When the kidneys no longer function, patients must either undergo dialysis regularly or receive a donor kidney (transplantation). The organ comes either from a brain dead donor or a person close to the patient (live donor). The blood type and tissue compatibility factors (HLA factors) of donor and recipient should be matched as closely as possible. Since the recipient organism always attempts to reject the foreign organ, even if it has the same HLA factors, patients have to take medication after transplantation for as long as they live to suppress rejection (immunosuppression).

Pre-operative risk assessment for high immunological risk patients

Researchers at the Heidelberg Department of Transplantation Immunology collected data over many years in the world's largest database for kidney transplantation (Collaborative Transplant Study) in order to identify patients who are at a high risk of immunological rejection. These are patients who have formed antibodies against foreign tissue, for example after pregnancies, blood transfusions, or previous transplantations, and therefore have only a slight chance of receiving a donor organ for which the tissue compatibility test (crossmatch) directly before the operation is negative. "The risk of rejecting the transplanted organ soon after the operation is especially high in this group of patients. High-risk patients can receive transplants successfully only if additional measures are taken," explained Professor Dr. Caner Süsal, head of the antibody laboratory at the Department of Transplantation Immunology.

Same transplant survival rates as for non-immunized patients

In the current study, 34 high immunological risk patients were given plasmapheresis or immunoadsorption before and after the transplantation of a donor kidney from a brain dead (28) or live donor (6). These are procedures that remove the antibodies from the blood of the organ recipient. In addition, the patients were given a drug (Rituximab) that destroys the cells that could form new antibodies. With the help of intensive immunosuppression and close monitoring for any signs of rejection, some 95 percent of the transplanted kidneys were still functioning after one year.

Complications from the stronger immunosuppression in comparison with non-sensitized patients were rare and were easily overcome. "With the aid of the criteria we tested, we were able to transplant kidneys to patients who would formerly have needed dialysis their whole life, and at success rates corresponding to those of non-sensitized patients. Our high risk patient program is a good example of how results from research can be successfully implemented clinically after intense evaluation," Dr. Christian Morath and Dr. Jörg Beimler, senior consultant at the Department of Nephrology at Heidelberg University Hospital, were happy to report. "If we proceed according to the new methods, obstacles such as blood group incompatibility and a positive crossmatch are no longer criteria for exclusion for transplantation," added Professor Jan Schmidt, head of the division of transplantation surgery.

Youngest patient to receive successful transplant thus far

A total of 49 patients have now been treated successfully using the regimen, most recently a child of 13 who was the youngest patient thus far to benefit from the program. "The boy is doing well and the kidney has already begun functioning completely," reported Professor Burkhard Tönshoff, chief consultant at the Center for Child and Adolescent Medicine.

Intensive interdisciplinary cooperation is the key to success

Transplantation in high-risk patients requires the exchange of information between specialists daily or sometimes several times a day and seamless interdisciplinary communication. The excellent results show that the cooperation of various disciplines at the Heidelberg Transplantation Center functions well.



INFORMATION:

More information on the Internet:
www.ctstransplant.org
www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=4149&L=en
www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=1250&L=en

Reference: Morath C, Beimler J, Opelz G, Ovens J, Scherer S, Schmidt J, Schmied B, Gross ML, Schwenger V, Zeier M, Süsal C. An Integrative Approach for the Transplantation of High-Risk Sensitized Patients. Transplantation, 2010 Jul 27. [Epub ahead of print]

Contact person:
PD Dr. med. Christian Morath
Heidelberg University Hospital
Department of Nephrology
Im Neuenheimer Feld 162
69120 Heidelberg
phone: +49 6221 / 91 120
fax: +49 6221 / 91 12 990
e-mail: christian_morath@med.uni-heidelberg.de

Prof. Dr. med. Jan Schmidt
Deputy Medical Director
Department of General, Visceral, and Transplantation Surgery
Heidelberg University Hospital
Im Neuenheimer Feld 110
69120 Heidelberg
phone: +49 6221 / 56 62 05
fax: +49 6221 / 56 57 81
e-mail: Jan.Schmidt@med.uni-heidelberg.de

Prof. Dr. med. Caner Süsal
Antibody Laboratory
Division of Transplantation Immunology
Heidelberg University Hospital
Im Neuenheimer Feld 306
69120 Heidelberg
phone: +49 6221 / 56 55 46
fax: +49 6221 / 56 42 00

Heidelberg University Hospital and Medical Faculty:

Internationally recognized patient care, research, and teaching Heidelberg University Hospital is one of the largest and most prestigious medical centers in Germany. The Medical Faculty of Heidelberg University belongs to the internationally most renowned biomedical research institutions in Europe. Both institutions have the common goal of developing new therapies and implementing them rapidly for patients. With about 7,600 employees, training and qualification is an important issue. Every year, around 550,000 patients are treated on an inpatient or outpatient basis in more than 40 clinics and departments with 2,000 beds. Currently, about 3,400 future physicians are studying in Heidelberg; the reform Heidelberg Curriculum Medicinale (HeiCuMed) is one of the top medical training programs in Germany.

Requests by journalists:
Dr. Annette Tuffs
Head of Public Relations and Press Department
University Hospital of Heidelberg and
Medical Faculty of Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld 672
D-69120 Heidelberg
Germany
phone: +49 6221 / 56 45 36
fax: +49 6221 / 56 45 44
e-mail: annette.tuffs@med.uni-heidelberg.de

Selected english press releases online: http://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/presse

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Successful kidney transplantation despite tissue incompatibility

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Large study shows females are equal to males in math skills

2010-10-13
MADISON — The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin. One portion of the new study looked systematically at 242 articles that assessed the math skills of 1,286,350 people, says chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These studies, all published in English between 1990 and 2007, looked at people from grade school to college and beyond. ...

Study supports the long-term benefits of transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression

2010-10-13
(CHICAGO)–In a study to determine the durability and long-term effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), psychiatric researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found the non-invasive, non-drug therapy to be an effective, long-term treatment for major depression. Results of the study were published in the October 2010 issue of Brain Stimulation, a journal published by Elsevier. TMS therapy is a non-invasive technique that delivers highly focused magnetic field pulses to a specific portion of the brain, the left prefrontal cortex, in order to stimulate ...

Adding cetuximab to chemotherapy doubles response rate in hard-to-treat breast cancer

2010-10-13
European researchers have proven for the first time that targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor can provide substantial clinical benefit for women with hard-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer. At the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy, the researchers presented results from a Phase-II randomized trial showing that adding the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab to cisplatin chemotherapy doubled the response rate and time to progression when compared to cisplatin chemotherapy given alone in a study of 173 heavily pre-treated ...

Early research reveals new clues to origin of diabetes

2010-10-13
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – University of Michigan scientists have identified events inside insulin-producing pancreatic cells that set the stage for a neonatal form of non-autoimmune type 1 diabetes, and may play a role in type 2 diabetes as well. The results point to a potential target for drugs to protect normally functioning proteins essential for producing insulin. A study published online today in the journal PLoS One shows that certain insulin gene mutations involved in neonatal diabetes cause a portion of the proinsulin proteins in the pancreas' beta cells to misfold. ...

Global research effort leads to new findings on genes and obesity

2010-10-13
October 10, 2010─(BRONX, NY) ─Two major international studies looking at data from a quarter of a million people around the globe have found a new set of genes associated with body fat distribution and obesity. Researchers at 280 institutions worldwide, including Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, conducted the studies. The research, published in the October 10 online edition of Nature Genetics, sheds light on the biological processes involved in body fat distribution, possibly leading to new ways of treating obesity. "These studies ...

NFL players with concussions now sidelined longer

2010-10-13
Los Angeles, CA (October 11, 2010) NFL players with concussions now stay away from the game significantly longer than they did in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to research in Sports Health (owned by American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and published by SAGE). The mean days lost with concussion increased from 1.92 days during 1996-2001 to 4.73 days during 2002-2007. In an effort to discover whether concussion injury occurrence and treatment had changed, researchers compared those two consecutive six-year periods to determine the circumstances of ...

Abiraterone acetate improves survival in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer

2010-10-13
Patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have progressed after chemotherapy live significantly longer if treated with the drug abiraterone acetate compared to placebo, the results of a large Phase-III clinical trial confirm. "This is a major step forward in prostate cancer therapeutics," said Dr Johann de Bono from The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London, who presented the study results at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy. "Patients in this Phase-III ...

Fertility concerns of cancer survivors inadequately addressed, study finds

2010-10-13
Many cancer survivors experience changes in sexual function that leave them feeling guilty and a longing for intimacy, Australian researchers told at the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy. The researchers say that these sexuality and fertility concerns are often not adequately addressed by doctors. Professor Bogda Koczwara from Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide said that fertility concerns among cancer survivors was a growing problem, due to a combination of improved cancer treatment outcomes in young cancer survivors ...

Re-evaluating the time of your life

2010-10-13
In life, we're told, we must take the good with the bad, and how we view these life events determines our well-being and ability to adjust. But according to Prof. Dov Shmotkin of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology, you need more than the right attitude to successfully negotiate the vicissitudes of life. As recently reported in Aging and Mental Health, Prof. Shmotkin's research reveals that people's well-being and their adaptation can be ascertained by their "time trajectory" ― their concept of how they have evolved through their remembered past, currently ...

Sexual issues a major concern for cancer patients taking new targeted drugs

2010-10-13
New drugs that target specific molecular mechanisms of cancer have improved the treatment of cancer patients in recent years, but those benefits may come with a cost to the patient's sex life, researchers have found. At the 35th Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Milan, Italy, French researchers reported on one of the few studies to investigate the impact of cancer therapy on the sexual functioning of patients. Dr Yohann Loriot and Dr Thomas Bessede from Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France and colleagues found that patients taking ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Pandemic raised food, housing insecurity in Oregon despite surge in spending

OU College of Medicine professor earns prestigious pancreatology award

Sub-Saharan Africa leads global HIV decline: Progress made but UNAIDS 2030 goals hang in balance, new IHME study finds

Popular diabetes and obesity drugs also protect kidneys, study shows

Stevens INI receives funding to expand research on the neural underpinnings of bipolar disorder

Protecting nature can safeguard cities from floods

NCSA receives honors in 2024 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards

Warning: Don’t miss Thanksgiving dinner, it’s more meaningful than you think

Expanding HPV vaccination to all adults aged 27-45 years unlikely to be cost-effective or efficient for HPV-related cancer prevention

Trauma care and mental health interventions training help family physicians prepare for times of war

Adapted nominal group technique effectively builds consensus on health care priorities for older adults

Single-visit first-trimester care with point-of-care ultrasound cuts emergency visits by 81% for non-miscarrying patients

Study reveals impact of trauma on health care professionals in Israel following 2023 terror attack

Primary care settings face barriers to screening for early detection of cognitive impairment

November/December Annals of Family Medicine Tip Sheet

Antibiotics initiated for suspected community-acquired pneumonia even when chest radiography results are negative

COVID-19 stay-at-home order increased reporting of food, housing, and other health-related social needs in Oregon

UW-led research links wildfire smoke exposure with increased dementia risk

Most U.S. adults surveyed trust store-bought turkey is free of contaminants, despite research finding fecal bacteria in ground turkey

New therapy from UI Health offers FDA-approved treatment option for brittle type 1 diabetes

Alzheimer's: A new strategy to prevent neurodegeneration

A clue to what lies beneath the bland surfaces of Uranus and Neptune

Researchers uncover what makes large numbers of “squishy” grains start flowing

Scientists uncover new mechanism in bacterial DNA enzyme opening pathways for antibiotic development

New study reveals the explosive secret of the squirting cucumber

Vanderbilt authors find evidence that the hunger hormone leptin can direct neural development in a leptin receptor–independent manner

To design better water filters, MIT engineers look to manta rays

Self-assembling proteins can be used for higher performance, more sustainable skincare products

Cannabis, maybe, for attention problems

Building a better path to recovery for OUD

[Press-News.org] Successful kidney transplantation despite tissue incompatibility
Results comparable with regular transplantation/Published in Transplantation