New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor

[iolaire]

New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/health/kidney-transplant-desensitization-immune-system.html?_r=0

In the anguishing wait for a new kidney, tens of thousands of patients on waiting lists may never find a match because their immune systems will reject almost any transplanted organ. Now, in a large national study that experts are calling revolutionary, researchers have found a way to get them the desperately needed procedure.

In the new study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, doctors successfully altered patients’ immune systems to allow them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors. Significantly more of those patients were still alive after eight years than patients who had remained on waiting lists or received a kidney transplanted from a deceased donor.

The method, known as desensitization, “has the potential to save many lives,” said Dr. Jeffery Berns, a kidney specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the president of the National Kidney Foundation.

[Charlie B53]

This was very briefly mentioned this morning on the Today Show.  They didn't say much other than the title.

Thanks for finding and posting the link.

[Michael Murphy]

This is another example of a brighter future in the near future, this along with other new tech is turning dialysis I from a treatment to a bridge to the new tech that is under reasearch.