Posts Tagged ‘transplant’

Johns Hopkins University transplant surgeons have successfully completed what is believed to be the world’s first kidney transplant involving a kidney that was removed from the donor through her vagina and then transplanted into her niece. Removing the kidney through the vagina avoided the need to make a 5 to 6 inch incision in the donor’s abdomen and, instead, left only three pea-size scars, one of which is hidden in the navel. More about minimally invasive surgery.

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A German woman became the mother of a new baby girl last week. What makes this story special is that baby Maja, named after the Roman goddess of fertility, was born as a result of the world’s first successful whole-ovary transplant. Susanne Butscher received her ovary from her sister, making Maja genetically her niece. The transplant procedure required microsurgery to connect the blood vessels to the ovary then positioning the ovary precisely so that eggs released from it could properly travel down the fallopian tube to be fertilized.

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Are men and women truly different at heart? Perhaps, when it comes to heart transplants. A new Johns Hopkins University study finds that cardiac transplant patients have better odds of survival and a lower risk of rejection if they receive organs from donors of the same sex. Doctors think that heart size is an important factor. Men’s hearts are bigger and have more pumping capacity than women’s. Researchers believe that hormonal and immunologic differences between the sexes may also play a role. However, at this time it is not feasible for every person in need of a heart transplant to be paired with a perfect match – approximately 2,700 Americans are waiting for a heart, but only 2,200 heart transplants are performed annually.

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