Double transplants and split transplants were among a number of patients' stories reported in the press over the past few weeks.
A 26-year-old woman has donated part of her liver to her 28-year-old husband in what is believed to be "the first transplant in the country involving a living adult liver donor who is not a blood relative of the recipient," the Associated Press reported on July 30. During the 13-hour surgery, surgeons at Richmond's Medical College of Virginia transplanted the right lobe of the woman's liver.
On July 25, a 65-year-old Illinois man with hepatitis C and diabetes became the first person in the Midwest to receive a transplanted liver and pancreatic islet cells. The liver and cells came from the same donor. Instead of performing only the liver transplant, surgeons at the University of Chicago tried the pancreatic cell transplant in hopes that the patient's body would begin to produce insulin naturally. Because immunosuppressive drugs--needed after the liver transplant--make diabetes harder to control, "far greater amounts of insulin treatment" would have been required without the new islet cells, the hospital said. A full pancreas transplant was considered "too risky" in light of the patient's liver disease. Only two other centers in the United States have performed combined liver and islet cell transplants.
A 9-year-old St. Louis boy has returned home about four months after receiving a new liver, small intestine, and part of a new pancreas. The boy was reportedly "days from death" at the time of the transplants, but doctors said his chances for full recovery are excellent.
Reuters news service reported that a Palestinian family donated four of their son's organs to "Israeli Jews in a gesture they said defied often tense relations between Israelis and Palestinians." The donor's kidneys, liver, and heart were transplanted into four Israeli patients.
A 5-year-old Idaho girl has died of pneumonia 16 months after receiving a five-organ transplant at Jackson Children's Hospital in Miami. The girl had received a donor stomach, liver, pancreas, small intestine, and large intestine.
In late July, a 2-year-old girl and a 51-year-old man received parts of the same donor's liver in the first split-liver transplant performed at the University Hospitals in Iowa City.
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