[chris_at_lucas_RN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080124...drentransplant

I'm no transplant nurse, but this doesn't make sense to me.

Don't transplanted organs and recipients have to be matched, not just for blood type but also for antigens?

If they were a match, where's the switch?

And if they were not a match, why didn't this poor child pass like the one in the US a year or more ago where there were errors in the tissue matching and the child died of graft versus host?

Am I missing something here?

[chare]

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian girl spontaneously switched blood groups and adopted her donor's immune system following a liver transplant in the first known case of its type, doctors treating her said Thursday.

Girl switches blood type after liver transplant

[sirI]

Threads merged.

[mrsalby]

I am wondering if it has something to so with being O positive donor and O negative receiver. I heard about this on the radio today and it was O types and that is the only way I can imagine it would work...I work in neuro ICU and we have donor services there pratically everday so I will ask.

[chris_at_lucas_RN]

One of my MSN/FNP classmates is a transplant nurse.

She wasn't surprised by this at all, says it happens all the time.

They don't have to be a close match for two reasons: 1) a bone marrow transplant is a last ditch effort; you often take what you can get and 2) because essentially all the recipient's bone marrow is killed off and then replaced by donor marrow, the new blood cells that are created come from the donor marrow and so they have the DNA (and consequently the blood type, etc.) of the donor.

She said some of her patients' DNA post transplant is actually consistent with the opposite sex, because the donor was the opposite sex.

Fascinating.

[EricEnfermero]

Chris,

The patient didn't have a bone marrow transplant though, which is what makes this so unusual. The liver transplant induced a BMT-like effect basically, when stem cells from the donor liver migrated to the recipient's bone marrow.

[beachmom]

Here's an article on Yahoo news that shows doctors are doing this.
I copied the first couple paragraphs here, or you can follow the link.

Basically, if you give the person a bone marrow transplant at the same time as the organ transplant, the person won't reject.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/...VKcx.1EfCKOrgF

Doctors report transplant breakthrough

LOS ANGELES - In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.

The treatment involved weakening the patient's immune system, then giving the recipient bone marrow from the person who donated the organ. In one experiment, four of five kidney recipients were off immune-suppressing medicines up to five years later.

[chris_at_lucas_RN]

Originally Posted by EricEnfermero

Chris,

The patient didn't have a bone marrow transplant though, which is what makes this so unusual. The liver transplant induced a BMT-like effect basically, when stem cells from the donor liver migrated to the recipient's bone marrow.

You are absolutely right.

I should change my signature to "sleep deprived student."

[StudentNurseBean]

Originally Posted by beachmom

Here's an article on Yahoo news that shows doctors are doing this.
I copied the first couple paragraphs here, or you can follow the link.

Basically, if you give the person a bone marrow transplant at the same time as the organ transplant, the person won't reject.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/...VKcx.1EfCKOrgF

Doctors report transplant breakthrough

LOS ANGELES - In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.

The treatment involved weakening the patient's immune system, then giving the recipient bone marrow from the person who donated the organ. In one experiment, four of five kidney recipients were off immune-suppressing medicines up to five years later.

That is an interesting article. What a MAJOR breakthrough and so much HOPE for people