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Clumsy medics are at the center of a media storm in Mexico after they drop a human heart being rushed to a transplant patient by police helicopter.
World’s first double leg transplant performed in Spain
Spain has become a world leader in organ donation.
Spanish doctors have carried out the world’s first double leg transplant. They gave new lower limbs to a patient who lost both legs at mid-thigh in an accident, officials said Monday.
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Scientists Grow Miniature Human Livers in the Lab
The ultimate goal is to provide a solution to the shortage of donor livers available for patients who need transplants.
Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have reached an early, but important, milestone in the quest to grow replacement livers in the lab. They are the first to use human liver cells to successfully engineer miniature livers that function – at least in a laboratory setting – like human livers. The next step is to see if the livers will continue to function after transplantation in an animal model.
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Surgeon To Carry Out World’s First Full Leg Transplant
Dr. Pedro Cavadas
Pedro Cavadas is a remarkable man. The Spanish plastic surgeon works up to 14 hours a day on patients needing reconstructive microsurgery. They are mainly those rejected by other hospitals as inoperable or those – such as the patients he flies in from developing countries – for whom the cost of plastic surgery would be beyond their wildest dreams. Later this year, he will put himself and his not-for-profit medical organisation in the full glare of publicity by performing the world’s first full upper-leg transplant. Prosthetic limbs have developed to the point where most amputees with injuries below the knee do not need to risk a transplant. But for thousands requiring whole-leg amputations – many caused by traffic accidents and landmine explosions – this operation represents a first glimpse, however distant, of a possible return to their previous lives…
World’s First Full-Face Transplant Patient Appears in Public for the First Time
World’s first full-face transplant patient.
A Spanish farmer who had the world’s first full-face transplant has appeared in public for the first time since his pioneering surgery. (Pics)
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Do Hearts Store Memories? Heart Transplant Recipient Develops Cravings of Donor
David Waters received the heart from Kaden Delaney (top right). He now craves Burger Rings – one of Kaden’s favorite snacks.
A heart transplant patient is craving the food his donor used to eat, prompting questions over whether the organ has a ‘memory’ of its own.
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Results Of First Facial Transplant In U.S.
After a shotgun injury to her face, left, and as she appears after her face transplant surgery.
Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of Connie Culp’s face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman.
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Repairing Lungs Outside The Body
Lung tissue is preserved in the Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System with the aim of repairing lungs prior to transplant.
Lung transplant offers hope of a longer life for patients with end-stage respiratory diseases such as emphysema and cystic fibrosis, with some surviving for years following surgery. But due to chronic shortages of viable organs for transplant, only about 25 percent of patients on waiting lists receive new lungs. However, a new out-of-body lung-repair technique developed at the Toronto General Hospital may dramatically increase the number of lungs that can be used in transplants and improve surgical outcome.
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Study Shows The Human Heart Can Grow New Cells
Heart muscle cells can be grown from human embryonic stem cells, but new research suggests the adult heart can grow new cells, too.
The human heart has a notorious reputation for being unable to heal itself, but new research suggests it is capable of at least some self-repair. Using carbon dating to gauge the age of heart cells, scientists have found that low numbers of new heart cells are continuously being created throughout a person’s life. This raises the possibility that we may one day be able to use drugs to directly stimulate this regenerative capacity to patch up damaged hearts, rather than relying on cell-transplantation therapies.
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Update on First Facial Transplant
Isabelle Dinoire, who underwent a face transplant three years ago, has said that it was not easy getting used to life after the operation
The Frenchwoman who underwent the world’s first face transplant has said she is still struggling to come to terms with her looks. (PICS)
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Animal-Human Clones Don’t Work
Researchers who tried to use mouse, cow and rabbit eggs to make human clones said on Monday the effort failed to produce workable embryos but added that they showed human cloning should work in principle.
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Doctors Perform Windpipe Transplant With Stem Cells
A patient’s collapsed lung, at right, is seen prior to a windpipe transplant which used tissue grown from the patient’s own stem cells.
Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. “This technique has great promise,” said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.
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