How new, different serological testing policies for potential organ donors adopted recently by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the FDA impact OPOs, tissue banks, eye banks and transplant programs will be the topic of Transplant Communications, Inc.’s next audioconference. During the program, to be held Tuesday, October 21, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 [Sign in to read the full article...]

A small clinical trial has found that a miniature heart pump already in use in Europe helped U.S. youngsters waiting for heart transplants, HealthDay News reports. The pump, called the Berlin Heart Excor, helps provide children a bridge to transplantation. Results of the study, from St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, were published in the [Sign in to read the full article...]

Washington state’s high court ruled last week that the family of a man whose brain was taken for mental health research when he died can pursue a lawsuit against King County as well as the institute that received the organ, the Associated Press reports. The state Supreme Court unanimously found that a lower court judge [Sign in to read the full article...]

Students in classrooms across the United Kingdom will be able to learn about the dramatic effects of blood, organ, bone marrow and tissue donation and how they can donate, thanks to ‘Give and Let Live’, a free education pack issued by the National Health Service’s Blood and Transplant unit. The teaching resource is aimed primarily [Sign in to read the full article...]

Kidneys from older donors often do not survive long after transplantation because of structural dysfunctions that can occur as the kidney ages, according to a study by Stanford researchers. The findings, published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, indicate that the number of functioning glomeruli—the filtering units [Sign in to read the full article...]