The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning on Wednesday, May 26, advising consumers and health care professionals about potential rare occurrences of severe liver injury in patients taking the weight-loss medication orlistat, which is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline as Xenical and Alli. Xenical, which is available only by prescription, contains 120 milligrams of [Sign in to read the full article...]

Receiving an organ low in weight in relation to the recipient’s body weight increases a kidney transplant recipients risk of complications and ultimately organ failure, according to a new study appearing in the May Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that compatibility between a donated kidney’s weight and the weight [Sign in to read the full article...]

A recently introduced surgical heart procedure offers infants with severely underdeveloped hearts a better chance at surviving during their first year in life, comparison to standard surgery, according to a new study appearing in the May 27 Journal of the England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). Heart surgeons from 15 centers in the federally funded Pediatric [Sign in to read the full article...]

Two University of Georgia animal science researchers announced they have successfully produced 13 pigs that may hold the key to developing new therapies to treat human diseases such as diabetes, according to a study that will appear in the Journal Stem Cells and Development next month. The scientists did not clone the pigs—instead they adapted [Sign in to read the full article...]

On May 3, Mayo Clinic Arizona became the first hospital in US history to discharge a patient implanted with the SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH) to wait at home for a matching donor heart. Mayo Clinic is participating in a Food and Drug Administration Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical study of the Freedom driver, [Sign in to read the full article...]