Researchers believe they have made a significant breakthrough in the organ transplant process that may lead to many patients being able to forgo anti-rejection medication for the rest of their lives.
Dr. David Sachs of Massachusetts General Hospital of Boston, leader of the research, has developed a technique which involves weakening the organ recipient's immune system and then giving them bone marrow from the donor. One experiment resulted in four of five patients being off the immune-suppressant medication five years later.
To avoid rejection of the foreign organ patients are required to take the immune suppressing drug for like however the side effects can include excessive hair growth, bloating, hypertension and tumors. The drugs also raise the risk of kidney failure, liver damage, cancer and other diseases. Patients on the medication are also less able to resist infection.
By weakening the patient's immune system and infusing the donor marrow, patients develop a hybrid immune system thus allowing them to be weaned off the immune suppressant drugs.
To date patients have only been able to go five years without the medication but researchers are working on lengthening that period of time.
[Source: Yahoo News]
Good news! That is really rousing for those patients who suffer from this kind of disease. I do not know many about transplant, I just got the general idea from the book "Transplant: From Myth to Reality": http://dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=80673&ru=279 , I think transplant does not only filled in some big gaps in my education, but it really made me appreciate what huge advances medicine made in the last fifty years.
Posted by: jAIU | January 27, 2008 8:17 PM | Permalink to Comment