MASSDEVICE ON CALL —Doctors at Sweden’s Karolinska University hospital implanted the world’s first fully synthetic organ into a patient last month, effectively ridding the man of the cancer that threatened his life.
The 36-year-old male patient received a trachea made of his own stem cells, doing away with the risk of rejection or the need for a lifetime of immunosuppressive drugs.
The patient was suffering from late stage tracheal cancer. The tumor had grown to about 2.4 inches in length and, despite chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, was progressing to the point of nearly blocking his windpipe.
The synthetic organ was engineered as a last resort when no suitable donor organ was available, according to the release.
The trachea was grown in a laboratory in London where the organ grew into tracheal cells ready for transplantation after only two days of being placed on the scaffold, the Guardian News reported.
GOP wants to relax FDA’s conflict-of-interest standards
Republicans are pushing a repeal of the conflict-of-interest rules implemented in the FDA’s 2007 reauthorization, Healthwatch reported.
GOP officials argue that the rules are keeping the FDA from taking advantage of valuable drug industry expertise through "rigid, unrealistic conflict-of-interest provisions" that are delaying drug approvals and stifling job creation.
New CDC report extols importance of colon screenings
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention released findings from a study showing that regular cancer screenings have led to fewer cases of colon cancer as well as deaths from colon cancer.
While the report is encouraging, the Colon Cancer Alliance warns that there are still more than 22 million eligible adults between the ages of 50 and 75 who are not getting screenings, MedCity News reported.
Labor shortfalls await the medical field as reform makes health care more accessible
The medical field may not be able to keep up with demand as more American gain access to health care through President Barack Obama’s reform efforts, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
"It is important to note that more than two-thirds of advanced clinicians are physicians and that the U.S. is training fewer physicians per capita each year. Despite the participation of more advance practice nurses and physician assistants in both primary and specialty practices, the physician shortage has increased about one percent annually and is now 7-8 percent nationally, although its severity varies in different locales," said lead investigator Dr. Richard Cooper, professor at the Perleman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
