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Thursday, March 17, 2016

New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants from Any Donor

About 100,000 people in the USA are currently waiting for kidney transplants. The right donor kidney has to come along for a transplant to work. About 50% of patients have a great deal of difficulty receiving a transplant and about 20% have such sensitive immune systems that finding a matching kidney is almost impossible.
But that may change. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers have found a way to change the immune system of a transplant patient so that it can accept any donor kidney.
This treatment filters a patient's own antibodies out of his blood, then replaces it with different antibodies. Gina Kolata explains at the New York Times:
Desensitization involves first filtering the antibodies out of a patient’s blood. The patient is then given an infusion of other antibodies to provide some protection while the immune system regenerates its own antibodies. For some reason — exactly why is not known — the person’s regenerated antibodies are less likely to attack the new organ, Dr. Segev said. But if the person’s regenerated natural antibodies are still a concern, the patient is treated with drugs that destroy any white blood cells that might make antibodies that would attack the new kidney.

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