Liver transplant waitlists can range from 30 days to over five years. Developing treatments that spur liver regeneration could help reduce demand for scarce organs.
A cross section of lab-grown human liver tissue. The green shows the network of blood vessels.
Velazquez et al. Cell Systems
New strategy helps build synthetic organs from scratch. This enabled the researchers to grow functioning liver tissue in the lab that could be transplanted into mice with liver disease.
Eighty-five per cent of Ontarians support organ donation, but only one-third have opted in under the current system.
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Thousands of Canadians are on waiting lists for life-saving organ transplants. An opt-out organ donor system, like the one Nova Scotia is implementing, could reduce avoidable deaths and suffering.
New Australian film Wild Butterfly is a story of stigma and discrimination directed towards people who use drugs. And a reminder of what can happen when trauma and drug use are played for click bait.
A Nova Scotia woman displays the tattoo that marks her two liver transplants at the provincial legislature in Halifax in April 2019. The province’s Human Organ and Tissue Donation Act will allow Nova Scotians to donate their organs and tissue unless they opt out.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
Most Canadians support organ donation after death, but fewer than 25 per cent have registered to donate their organs. What can be done to encourage more registrations?
More than a year after a groundbreaking liver transplant doctors still can’t say if the recipient is HIV-positive or not.
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Many patients with end stage kidney disease would live longer and have a better quality of life with a kidney transplant compared to staying on dialysis.
The liver is a special organ. Mature liver cells - or hepatocytes - have the capacity to continually divide and repair damage. But only so far. Excessive drinking and chronic liver disease, for example…