Approach Could Free Organ Patients From Anti-Rejection Drugs

March 7, 2012 -- New research holds the promise of freeing many organ transplant patients from a lifetime of anti-rejection drugs.

In the first study of its kind, eight kidney transplant patients received stem cells from their kidney donors manipulated to trick their bodies into accepting the foreign organ as its own.

Transplant recipients who are not perfectly matched with their donors typically take several drugs a day for the rest of their lives to keep their bodies from rejecting the new organ and to treat the side effects of those drugs.

Lindsay Porter, who was the last of the eight patients enrolled in the new study, had her kidney transplant in the summer of 2010 and was weaned off all anti-rejection drugs within a year.

The Chicago actress and mother says she feels better than she has in 15 years and sometimes has to remind herself that she had a kidney transplant.

I was 45 when I had the surgery, and I knew I would probably need another kidney at some point, she tells WebMD. The opportunity to have a transplant that would last for the rest of my life and to avoid all of those drugs was very appealing.

The ongoing research is the culmination of many years of work by researcher Suzanne Ildstad, MD, of the University of Louisville, and other researchers, including transplant surgeon Joseph Leventhal, MD, PhD, of Chicagos Northwestern University.

The new wrinkle is that organ donors who are not a perfect genetic match with the patient donate blood as well as a kidney for the procedure.

Bone marrow stem cells collected from the blood were processed in an 18-hour procedure to remove cells associated with organ rejection, leaving behind facilitating cells that do not promote rejection, Ildstad says.

Originally posted here:
Altered Stem Cells Limit Transplant Rejection