#the transplants

[pegasusenergypower]

[reasonsforhope]

"The first modern attempt at transferring a uterus from one human to another occurred at the turn of the millennium. But surgeons had to remove the organ, which had become necrotic, 99 days later. The first successful transplant was performed in 2011 — but even then, the recipient wasn’t immediately able to get pregnant and deliver a baby. It took three more years for the first person in the world with a transplanted uterus to give birth. 

More than 70 such babies have been born globally in the decade since. “It’s a complete new world,” said Giuliano Testa, chief of abdominal transplant at Baylor University Medical Center.

Almost a third of those babies — 22 and counting — have been born in Dallas at Baylor. On Thursday, Testa and his team published a major cohort study in JAMA analyzing the results from the program’s first 20 patients. All women were of reproductive age and had no uterus (most having been born without one), but had at least one functioning ovary. Most of the uteri came from living donors, but two came from deceased donors.

Fourteen women had successful transplants, all of whom were able to have at least one baby.  

“That success rate is extraordinary, and I want that to get out there,” said Liza Johannesson, the medical director of uterus transplants at Baylor, who works with Testa and co-authored the study. “We want this to be an option for all women out there that need it.”

Six patients had transplant failures, all within two weeks of the procedure. Part of the problem may have been a learning curve: The study initially included only 10 patients, and five of the six with failed transplants were in that first group. These were “technical” failures, Testa said, involving aspects of the surgery such as how surgeons connected the organ’s blood vessels, what material was used for sutures, and selecting a uterus that would work well in a transplant. 

The team saw only one transplant fail in the second group of 10 people, the researchers said. All 20 transplants took place between September 2016 and August 2019.

Only one other cohort study has previously been published on uterus transplants, in 2022. A Swedish team, which included Johannesson before she moved to Baylor, performed seven successful transplants out of nine attempts. Six women, including the first transplant recipient to ever deliver a baby back in 2014, gave birth.

“It’s hard to extract data from that, because they were the first ones that did it,” Johannesson said. “This is the first time we can actually see the safety and efficacy of this procedure properly.”

So far, the signs are good: High success rates for transplants and live births, safe and healthy children so far, and early signs that immunosuppressants — typically given to transplant recipients so their bodies don’t reject the new organ — may not cause long-term harm, the researchers said. (The uterine transplants are removed after recipients no longer need them to deliver children.) And the Baylor team has figured out how to identify the right uterus for transfer: It should be from a donor who has had a baby before, is premenopausal, and, of course, who matches the blood type of the recipient, Testa said...

“They’ve really embraced the idea of practicing improvement as you go along, to understand how to make this safer or more effective. And that’s reflected in the results,” said Jessica Walter, an assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial on the research in JAMA...

Walter was a skeptic herself when she first learned about uterine transplants. The procedure seemed invasive and complicated. But she did her fellowship training at Penn Medicine, home to one of just four programs in the U.S. doing uterine transplants. 

“The firsts — the first time the patient received a transplant, the first time she got her period after the transplant, the positive pregnancy test,” Walter said. “Immersing myself in the science, the patients, the practitioners, and researchers — it really changed my opinion that this is science, and this is an innovation like anything else.” ...

Many transgender women are hopeful that uterine transplants might someday be available for them, but it’s likely a far-off possibility. Scientists need to rewind and do animal studies on how a uterus might fare in a different “hormonal milieu” before doing any clinical trials of the procedure with trans people, Wagner said.

Among cisgender women, more long-term research is still needed on the donors, recipients, and the children they have, experts said.

“We want other centers to start up,” Johannesson said. “Our main goal is to publish all of our data, as much as we can.”"

-via Stat, August 16, 2024

[tigerdragon1001]

Sick of characters who are simply Cool or Badass or Horrifying or Edgy all the time. They need to be pathetic too. It elevates them. It’s like adding a bit of salt to a sweet dish to bring out the flavour. Tbh, I think a character can only be truly horrifying, badass, etc. WITH a lil bit of pathetic in 'em.

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

nothing will convince me this didn't happen post tmp

[stil-lindigo]

motherhood.

[thankstothe]

gay sex

[wis-art]

I was busy doing commissions and dealing with chronic pain, but it's still lesbian visibility week so i hope you all feel seen :)

Both characters are trans women (she/her)

[lillylunala]

*Viciously shakes her like a chewtoy*

[intheholler]

[kaleidoramblings]

Never getting over how Paint the Town Blue and Rebel Heart were wasted on an Act where Jinx doesn't go apeshit even a little, despite having plenty of reason to.

Jinx in S1:

"I'm worried Silco thinks I'm weak." [blows up Enforcers about it]

"I think my sister chose a cop over me." [blows up Enforcers about it]

"I accidentally killed my dad and I'm turning my back on my sister." [blows up the Council about it]

Jinx in S2A1:

"My sister turned bluebelly and is helping her cop girlfriend gas the undercity." [attempts dual-sororicide and blows the Grey into Piltover about it]

Jinx in S2A2:

"My emotional support child who I supposedly developed a deep familial bond with was arrested by Enforcers and taken to prison." [makes quips at and gives the finger to an Enforcer about it?]

Seriously though, a person with zero mental disorders and no abandonment issues would've shown more emotion over having their child/sister arrested than Jinx, notorious overreactor, did. We get one (1) moment of seeing her haunted by her hallucinations and then... nothing. Cool as a cucumber, not even particularly serious, cracking lighthearted jokes and exchanging quips. Who even is this!

And why the hell has Jinx been lying low and refusing to go even a tiny bit ham on the Enforcers when Isha actively wants her to do so. One of Jinx's fundamental character traits is that she has A Person, and she wants to be of value to that person by fulfilling their goals (even if it's in ways they didn't ask of her). So why is she ignoring something Isha really wants her to do! Who even is this!!

And it's not as if Jinx is acting like (kid) Powder either, because you know what Powder did? Build bombs to use on Enforcers. With nails in them!

[pegasusenergypower]

[spicyvampire]

A normal serie of events to happen in 5 days

MANNER OF DEATH (2020) EP. 1 Air date : November 30th, 2020

[balkanradfem]

me: puts a seed under some soil

me, 10 minutes later: where is,,, plant

[reasonsforhope]

"In a highly-anticipated world-first, the Texas Heart Institute has successfully implanted an artificial titanium heart that uses the same technology as bullet trains to pump blood mechanically throughout the body.

Called the Total Artificial Heart (TAH), the feat is seen as a major step in keeping people alive for longer and longer periods while they wait for heart transplants.

Texas Heart partnered with the medical tech company BiVACOR to create the TAH. It’s a titanium-constructed biventricular rotary blood pump with a single moving part that utilizes a magnetically levitated rotor that pumps the blood and replaces both ventricles of a failing heart.

The benefit of using magnetic levitation is that none of the moving parts ever scrape or slide against each other, reducing friction, and dramatically increasing the longevity of the device. But what’s really cool is the TAH can pump blood at a rate of 12 liters per minute, enough to allow an adult male to engage in exercise.

The first-in-human clinical study, overseen closely by the FDA, aims to evaluate the safety and performance of the BiVACOR TAH as a bridge-to-transplant solution for patients with severe bi or univentricular heart failure. Following this first implantation completed at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Texas Medical Center, four additional patients are to be enrolled in the study.

“The Texas Heart Institute is enthused about the groundbreaking first implantation of BiVACOR’s TAH. With heart failure remaining a leading cause of mortality globally, the BiVACOR TAH offers a beacon of hope for countless patients awaiting a heart transplant,” said Dr. Joseph Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Texas Heart Institute and National Principal Investigator on the research.

“We are proud to be at the forefront of this medical breakthrough, working alongside the dedicated teams at BiVACOR, Baylor College of Medicine, and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center to transform the future of heart failure therapy for this vulnerable population.”

Heart failure is a global epidemic affecting at least 26 million people worldwide, 6.2 million adults in the US, and is increasing in prevalence. Heart transplantations are reserved for those with severe heart failure and are limited to fewer than 6,000 procedures per year globally. Consequently, the US National Institutes of Health estimated that up to 100,000 patients could immediately benefit from mechanical alternatives.

The successful implantation of BiVACOR’s TAH highlights the potential of innovative technologies to address critical challenges in cardiac care, such as long transplantation waitlists.

“This achievement would not have been possible without the courage of our first patient and their family, the dedication of our team, and our expert collaborators at The Texas Heart Institute,” said Daniel Timms, founder and CTO of BiVACOR."

-Article via Good News Network, August 1, 2024. Video via 7News Australia, July 26, 2024.