Human Liver

[Michaelangelica]

# 00:00: New method of transplanting livers

# 07:52: Hepatitis B - a call for wider screening

Science Show

[Michaelangelica]

Hepatitis C Treatment Reduces The Virus But Serious Liver Problems May Progress

 

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — Patients with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who did not respond to previous standard therapy experienced significant decreases in their liver enzymes, viral levels, and liver inflammation following treatment with long-term pegylated interferon. However, the treatment did not slow or prevent the progression of serious liver disease.

Hepatitis C Treatment Reduces The Virus But Serious Liver Problems May Progress

[ughaibu]

I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying the PEGylated interferon/ribavirin combination therapy. I was diagnosed with a high load of mixed genotypes, putting me in the pessimistic outlook category, chances of success no better than 50%. Nevertheless, my virus was undetectable after five weeks of treatment and hasn't re-appeared (I had my one year post-treatment check in October). I have a slightly fat, but improved, liver, otherwise my blood indicates a normal liver and generally I feel better than I did for several years before diagnosis. At a 50% chance of success, I think it's an unrefusable bet, the treatment takes a year, I've already had a year of good health due to it.

[InfiniteNow]

I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying the PEGylated interferon/ribavirin combination therapy. I was diagnosed with a high load of mixed genotypes, putting me in the pessimistic outlook category, chances of success no better than 50%. Nevertheless, my virus was undetectable after five weeks of treatment and hasn't re-appeared (I had my one year post-treatment check in October). I have a slightly fat, but improved, liver, otherwise my blood indicates a normal liver and generally I feel better than I did for several years before diagnosis. At a 50% chance of success, I think it's an unrefusable bet, the treatment takes a year, I've already had a year of good health due to it.

... And the fora of Hypography are better for it. Glad to hear it, ughaibu. :warped:

[Michaelangelica]

... And the fora of Hypography are better for it. Glad to hear it, ughaibu. :)

 

Being Irish, iI think I have stuffed my liver.

What can you get for a second-hand, hardly used model?

 

New Organ Allocation Criteria Associated With Decreased Deaths On Liver Transplant Waiting List

 

ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2007) — Changing the method by which donated livers are allocated to potential transplant patients appears to have decreased the number of deaths among individuals on the waiting list as well as shortened the time to transplantation, according to a report in the Archives of Surgery.

 

 

Since 1991, the number of liver transplantation candidates on the waiting list for donor organs has increased by a factor of ten, while the number of donor livers has only doubled, according to background information in the article. In 1998, four categories of medical urgency were established to prioritize patients with end-stage liver disease on the waiting list; as the list lengthened, duration on the list became the major way to sort patients within each category. On Feb. 27, 2002, the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD) score--an objective score based on several laboratory values--was adopted in an attempt to allocate donor organs more equitably and based on medical urgency.

 

Mary T. Austin, M.D., M.P.H., and colleagues at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn., studied the outcomes associated with this change in policy by studying patients on the waiting list from March 1, 1999, to July 30, 2004--36 months before and 29 months after adoption of the MELD scoring system. Information about 60,392 individuals age 18 or older on the waiting list at any point during this period was obtained from the United Network for Organ Sharing data file.

 

The change in policy was associated with an immediate increase in number of deaths among individuals on the waiting list, from about 11 deaths to 13 deaths per 1,000 registrants per month. However, this was followed by a decline over time of about .09 deaths per 1,000 individuals per month.

 

"An immediate effect of decreased waiting time was also noted (from approximately 294 to 250 days; -44.4 days), which reached a new, lower post-intervention steady state," the authors write. "With the transition in allocation policy from a system that emphasized waiting time to one that favored disease severity with a de-emphasis on patient waiting time, many less-ill registrants placed on the list for the sole purpose of 'banking time' may have been removed, leading to an overall decrease in the time to transplantation for the remaining registrants."

 

The change did not appear to affect the number of new registrants per month or the survival rates three or six months after transplantation. "Given that the new allocation policy prioritizes patients with higher MELD scores to receive transplants, these results are encouraging," the authors write.

 

"In solid-organ transplantation, the liver transplantation community was the first to adopt an objective score as the basis of organ allocation policy," they continue. "Careful evaluation of this major change in the allocation of deceased donor livers is essential because it may direct future allocation policies. Using the interrupted time series method, our data provide more conclusive evidence that this policy had a positive impact on waiting list mortality. Because significant resources are expended in efforts to equitably allocate organs, this work provides empiric justification of this policy change."

 

Journal article: Arch Surg. 2007;142(11):1079-1085.

 

This work was supported in part by a Health Resources and Services Administration contract.

 

Adapted from materials provided by JAMA and Archives Journals.

 

New Organ Allocation Criteria Associated With Decreased Deaths On Liver Transplant Waiting List

[Michaelangelica]

Traditionally 'yellow' herbs were considered good for the liver

How did they connect jauundice with liver?(Doctrine of signatures :Yes I know but How did they know the liver disease was causing yellow skin?)

 

Is seems many 'yellow' herbs are in fact good for the liver; dandeloin for example.

 

St. Mary's Thistle (seeds) seems especially potent; able to restore liver damaged by mushroom liver toxins (If you get it early enough)

 

Info on another "yellow" herb

Curcumin: From ancient medicine to current clinical trials.

 

Cell Mol Life Sci. 2008 Mar 7;

 

Authors: Hatcher H, Planalp R, Cho J, Torti FM, Torti SV

 

Curcumin is the active ingredient in the traditional herbal remedy and dietary spice turmeric (Curcuma longa). Curcumin has a surprisingly wide range of beneficial properties, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic activity.

The pleiotropic activities of curcumin derive from its complex chemistry as well as its ability to influence multiple signaling pathways, including survival pathways such as those regulated by NF-kappaB, Akt, and growth factors; cytoprotective pathways dependent on Nrf2; and metastatic and angiogenic pathways. Curcumin is a free radical scavenger and hydrogen donor, and exhibits both pro- and antioxidant activity.

 

It also binds metals, particularly iron and copper, and can function as an iron chelator. Curcumin is remarkably non-toxic and exhibits limited bioavailability.

 

Curcumin exhibits great promise as a therapeutic agent, and is currently in human clinical trials for a variety of conditions, including multiple myeloma, pancreatic cancer, myelodysplastic syndromes, colon cancer, psoriasis and Alzheimer's disease.

 

PMID: 18324353 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

[omedetou_dana]

Hi!

I think that is very important to have a discussion about transplantation (legislation and traffic in human organs) There are organs like kidney , liver and bone marrow which can obtained from a living donor . It is proved that transplants are increasing the life expectancy and reducing the costs (for the health system).

One of the ethical issues is that long waiting list which encourage the traffic in human organs. (poor people from many countries like India , Brazil, Romania, China are are affected)

[ughaibu]

The liver regenerates. There's been some success in transplanting parts of the liver of a living sibling.