This is a medical breakthrough

[Skybird]

Doctors and medical scientist in Kiel, Germany, report to have solved the biggest problem with organ transplantation: that the receiving body refuses the organ by its aggressively reacting immune system. so far, patients needed to take three drugs with heavy side effects to supress these excessive imune-reactions, and still the procedure often fails. In Kiel they developed a method that does not only transplant the organ, but certain parts of key importance from the immune system as well. By that, they reduce the number of needed drugs from three to one - and this one with extremely low doses and no comparable side-effects anymore.

They said they are so sure of their findings and procedures that they expect them to become new rotuine standard wordwide within just three years.

German:
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/medi...Schrecken.html

[Yahoshua]

This really is a big deal!!

Hope it makes it through the medical review (politics as always).

[Steel_Tomb]

This is huge, in Biology we always discussed how big a problem an immune response to foreign objects i.e. new organs in the body was. If this can be mass produced, it will mean a revolution in organ transplants. Skybird, would you be able to translate part of that article? I only know a very small amount of German, so thats a bit out of my leauge! Danke!

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Well done Germany

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Steel_Tomb

This is huge, in Biology we always discussed how big a problem an immune response to foreign objects i.e. new organs in the body was. If this can be mass produced, it will mean a revolution in organ transplants. Skybird, would you be able to translate part of that article? I only know a very small amount of German, so thats a bit out of my leauge! Danke!

I just wait and watch. sooner or later international reports on it will be available anyway. the absic message I have summed up anyway. Only one problem with one type of immune cells remains - this is the type of cells the remaining drug is needed for. Else, the immune system does not produce any aversive reactions anymore. Der Spiegel International eventually will pick up the story soon. I let you know as soon as something in English is found.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kapitan_Phillips

Well done Germany

I prefer "well done team.

[peterloo]

The team did a fabulous job

In this way, I'm sure organ transplants will be hindered by the immunity reaction in a much lessor extent, and definitely more lives can be saved.

Keep it up!

[Yahoshua]

This made me stop and wonder for a second.

Would this discovery make it easier for patients in need of organ transplants to afford such operations?

I'm not too keen on the specifics of organ transplants but I understand that how the procedure works now, in order for one to receive a transplant one must have the same blood type and meet specific health criteria (nonsmoker, no contagious disease) to qualify right?

[caspofungin]

i can't read german, so i can't comment on that article specifically, but 2 institutions in the us (stanford and i think someplace in boston) have already reported 2 seperate techniques that have allowed them to keep kidney recipients off immunosuppressants for 3 and 5 years respectively.

[Wolfehunter]

I see only one problem with this wonderful technology:hmm: .. Well two problems,

First is the pharmaceutical industry. They will loose a major busness on there medical products aka drugs.

Second will be who could afford the unique medical treatments? Will it be for just the privileged or everyone?

Great to know you can smoke till your lungs are black and say I want to replace them with new grown young ones.

Or remove my cancerous tissue with a new one. This is all great on paper but is it practical? Will it work in our sad world of the

I would be nice to see this medical breakthrough available for the world.

[Jimbuna]

Yeah, we've seen these 'wonder' drugs released in the past, but they are generally unaffordable on the NHS (UK) and mostly available to those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford them.

I hope this will not be the case here.

[FIREWALL]

This is a huge medical achievement.

[caspofungin]

iirc, one of the us techniques used whole body irradiation to wipe out the recipient's immune system, then along with the transplanted kidney, the recipient was given certain cells from the donors immune system. as the immune system recovered from the radiation, the kidney wasn't recognized as non-self, so no immune reaction.

no new wonder drugs involved, just refinements of techniques already in use.

the cost of life-time immunosuppression, the transplant operation itself, etc. is much less than the procedures associated with lifetime dialysis, to say nothing of the significant improvement in both quantitity and quality of life, so there usually isn't any argument on the basis of cost in the nhs.

also, the major issue with transplantation is donor availability -- immunosuppression techniques already available are safe and well tolerated. even if someone came up with a cheap, effective method for immune tolerance tomorrow, most people wouldn't benefit because there's no point without available livers or kidneys.

[Skybird]

No, the German method isolates cells from the donor'S immune system and manipulates them in a way or treats them with agents that over 5 days period they chnage their superficial structure so that the receiver's system does not recognize them as alien anymore. then transplanted, the donor cells reprogram the receiver's immune system to not recognoize foreign cells from the donor's body, or better: the receiver'S system "learns" from the new cells the cell structure of the donor's physis - the scientists admit they just registrated the effect and take benefit of it, but do not know how it is internally functioning. Thus you can transplan tissue and organs from the donar's body wirthout triggering hostile reacion by the receiver's immune system. no wonder drugs, no heavy medication needed anymore. The immune system seem to consist of a wider diversity of different cell types, as I understand the article, and only one type of these does not accept to be reprogrammed. It is this cell type only the remaining drug (of once three) is needed for, in significantly lesser dosis (instead of heavy dosis before). Negative side effects and feeling bad of the patients from this lower medication do not compare to the comlications you see today. The method is not limited to just some kinds of organ transplantations. Since it generally reprograms the receiver'S immune system, you can transplant whatever you want. Also, the probability of the body refusing the foreign organ, as I understand the article, is very massively reduced (it currently is a high risk despite the heavy medication at the present), of the eight himan patients treated with this method, seven showed no sign of organ rejection whatever, and the last one only minor symptoms.It does not compare to the two methods caspofunghi has briefly lined out. reading it the first time, I immediately became aware that this acchievement is great stuff. And best of all, it does not seem to include heavy use of any cost-intensive procedures or medicvation. But that is my (novices) subjebctive perception- what it cost in reality they did not refer to. but when they think it is so convincing as to become new medical standard within just three years, it cannot be too expensive, i guess.

[Stealth Hunter]

Very interesting, indeed. I'll have to read up more on the subject.