Hearts from COVID-19 positive donors appear safe
The news offers some hope to those waiting for a new heart
study on the first heart transplants involving COVID-19
A positive donors showed that such operations might be as safe as those with donors free of the disease .
The results were presented at the American Heart Association ’ s Scientific Sessions conference but are still preliminary until they are peer-reviewed .
Researchers looked at data from 3,289 heart transplants , which included 84 hearts from COVID positive donors , and compared the two groups for any differences in post-op complications — such as organ rejection , post-op stroke and dialysis — or in death rates in the 30 days after surgery .
The outcomes were similar in both groups . For example , the survival rates in the first 30 days stood at 97 percent for transplants from donors without COVID and 96.1 percent in the group with COVID .
No additional complications were observed in patients who received a heart from donors with COVID-19 , not even an increased death risk from infections and lung complications , problems that tend to affect patients with COVID-19 .
“ These findings suggest that we may be able to be more aggressive about accepting donors that are positive for COVID-19 when patients are in dire need of an organ for heart transplantation ,” said Samuel T . Kim , study researcher and medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California , in a news release .
If the results stand up to peer review , they could help ease the shortage of donated hearts , thus saving lives . Currently , 3,363 people are on the waiting list for a heart in the US , according to the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network .
What is the safest blood thinner ?
Some evidence suggests that one drug has fewer side effects than others
Ablood thinner called apixaban outperforms similar medications in terms of safety , according to a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine .
Different types of direct oral anticoagulants ( DOAC ) are usually prescribed for people with atrial fibrillation ( AF ) or irregular heart rates in order to prevent a stroke , whose risk is increased in people with AF .
Though all the DOAC ’ s are similarly effective , a frequent side effect associated with them is gastrointestinal bleeding ( GIB ).
In order to find the safest option , researchers compared the clinical effects of the four DOACs in patients with AP from electronic healthcare databases covering 221 million people in France , Germany , the UK , and the US . Apixaban proved to have the best safety profile .
“ Among patients with AF , apixaban use was associated with lower risk for GIB and similar rates of ischemic stroke or systemic embolism , ICH , and all-cause mortality compared with dabigatran , edoxaban , and rivaroxaban ,” the authors wrote . “ This finding was consistent for patients aged 80 years or older and those with chronic kidney disease , who are often underrepresented in clinical trials .”
However , some experts question the validity of the new study because it was observational instead of randomised . The latter tends to offer stronger scientific evidence because it involves the random selection of at least two groups receiving the treatments to compare in order to account for potential bias and other chance occurrences .
“ There have not been large-scale randomised trials comparing the four approved DOACs . To reliably evaluate the comparative efficacy and safety among these four agents , randomised clinical trials would be needed ,” Dr Gregg Fonarow , a cardiologist at UCLA Health in California who didn ’ t participate in the study , told Medical News Today .
28 ISSUE 5 | 2022 GlobalHealthAsiaPacific . com