Friday 1 August 2014 – 2am PST
Innovations in surgical techniques, drugs and immunosuppression have improved survival after intestinal and multi-visceral transplants, according to a retrospective analysis of more than 500 surgeries done at UPMC over nearly 25 years.
The study was led by Goutham Kumar, M.D., a transplant surgery fellow at UPMC’s Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute. Dr. Kumar was recognized for his work with the Young Investigator Award by the 2014 World Transplant Congress and presented his findings at the group’s July 26 to 31 meeting in San Francisco.
“UPMC has led the way in the development of new surgical techniques and important research involving transplantation, and our analysis shows that our innovations have made a real difference to patients,” Dr. Kumar said.
The researchers examined 541 intestinal and multi-visceral transplants done at UPMC from 1990 to 2013. The total consisted of 228 pediatric transplants and 313 adult transplants; 252 were intestine-only transplants, 157 were liver-intestine, 89 were full multi-visceral, and 43 were modified multi-visceral. A majority of the pediatric patients suffered from gastroschisis, followed by volvulus and necrotizing entercolitis. The adult patients needed transplants because of thrombosis, Crohn’s disease or some kind of obstruction.
Researchers analyzed several outcomes and found that pre-conditioning with certain immunosuppressants, the time the graft is outside of the body, certain blood types and a disparity in the gender of donor and recipient were among the factors predicting graft survival.
Co-authors on the study are George Mazariegos, M.D., Guillerme Costa, M.D., Gaurav Gupta, M.D., Dolly Martin, Geoff Bond, M.D., Kyle Soltys, M.D., Rakesh Sindhi, M.D., Abhinav Humar, M.D., and Hiroshi Sogawa, M.D., all of either the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC or UPMC.
In addition to Dr. Kumar, six other UPMC and University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences researchers were recognized this year with Young Investigator Awards by the World Transplant Congress. They and their presentations are:
Aravind Cherukuri, M.D., Ph.D. “Transitional B Cell (TrB) T1/T2 Ratio is a Marker for Graft Dysfunction in Human Kidney Transplant Recipients (KTRs)”
Vinayak Rohan, M.D. “Outcomes of Liver Transplantation for Unresectable Liver Malignancy in Children”
Qing Ding, Ph.D. “TIM-1 Signaling is Required for Maintenance and Induction of Regulatory B Cells Through Apoptotic Cell Binding or TIM-1 Ligation”
Kanishka Mohib, Ph.D. “TIM-4 Expression by C Cells Identifies an Inflammatory B Effector 1 Subset that Promotes Allograft Rejection and Inhibits Tumor Metastases”
Dalia Raich-Regue, Ph.D. “Myeloid Dendritic Cell-Specific mTORC2 Deficiency Enhances Alloreactive Th1 and Th17 Cell Responses and Skin Graft Rejection”
Tripti Singh, M.D. “B Cell Depletion of Naïve Recipients Enhances Graft Reactive T Cell Responses”
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