Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Patient Stories, Research
Patient Alexandra Harry, center, with her Mount Sinai clinical team, from left: Shirish S. Huprikar, MD; Susan Lerner, MD; Brandy Haydel, Clinical Research Program Director; and Sander Florman, MD.
The Mount Sinai Hospital recently became the first hospital in New York State and
the second in the nation to perform a kidney transplant from an HIV-positive deceased donor to an HIV-positive recipient, the result of federal legislation that went into effect late last year making such transplants possible.
Led by Sander Florman, MD, Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, and the Charles Miller, MD Professor of Surgery, Mount Sinai is one of four medical centers in the country with federal approval to perform liver and kidney transplants under the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act.
“The new law is a win-win for everyone,” says Dr. Florman. “This represents the potentially largest increase to the organ donor pool in many years and could provide more organs for everyone.”
Prior to the HOPE Act, organs from HIV- positive donors were not legally allowed to be procured for transplant into patients with HIV—the only people eligible to receive them—which made organ waiting lists longer for all patients, including those without HIV. The average wait for a kidney from a deceased non-HIV donor is seven years in New York, according to Dr. Florman.
Alexandra Harry, 55, the first Mount Sinai patient to receive a kidney under the new law, called the transplant “a gift that has given me the opportunity for a better quality of life.” Since 2005, she had been on peritoneal dialysis, which had to be performed 10 hours each night. Ms. Harry says she learned about her eligibility to participate in Mount Sinai’s program only two weeks before she actually received
a suitable kidney, so the entire process was very quick.
A few days after her surgery this past spring, Ms. Harry said, “I felt an improvement almost immediately.” Her surgeon was Susan Lerner, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Medical Education at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute. Shirish S. Huprikar, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Transplant Infectious Diseases at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute, worked closely with the team to evaluate the appropriateness of HIV-positive donors.
According to Ms. Harry’s son, Aaron, 35, the transplant will enable his mother to travel more freely and see her extended family more frequently without the burden of carrying the medical supplies and equipment needed for her dialysis. “With this kidney, I see more
doors opening,” he says.
Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore and Mount Sinai were the first to perform the transplants. Like Ms. Harry, all recipients must agree to participate in clinical research approved by each hospital’s Institutional Review Board under criteria set by the National Institutes of Health. Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia and the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center also have permission to perform these transplants.
At Mount Sinai, there are currently about 80 HIV patients waiting for a kidney transplant and 12 waiting for a liver transplant, says Dr. Florman. It has been estimated that this new source of organs could be enough for as many as 2,500 additional deceased donor transplants in the United States each year.
Dr. Florman recently participated in an Organ Summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by the White House. At the summit, senior administration officials and transplant specialists from hospitals, universities, foundations, and patient advocacy organizations created a Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel with the goal of establishing a national clearinghouse of educational resources about transplant and living donation for patients, living donors, and the public.
“The need for organs for transplantation far exceeds the availability, and the waiting lists continue to grow,” says Dr. Florman. “People’s lives depend on these efforts, so we must find ways to increase the donor supply and also encourage living donation.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Research
Left: Erik Lium, PhD, Senior Vice President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners; and Steven J. Burakoff, MD, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine
The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and three other leading U.S. academic institutions recently established a pioneering research consortium to accelerate the discovery of new treatments for cancer.
In addition, Celgene Corp., a global biopharmaceutical company, paid $50 million to enter into four public-private collaboration agreements with each member of the new consortium for the option of developing and commercializing novel cancer therapeutics arising from their efforts. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Research
Kidney transplantation is the most common type of organ transplant surgery in the United States with over 17,000 kidney transplantations performed in 2014, according to the National Kidney Foundation. However, long-term survival still remains a challenge. While there is no actual crystal ball to predict whether a transplanted kidney will later develop fibrosis – a chronic injury that is a major cause of allograft loss after the first year – a team of researchers, led by Mount Sinai’s Barbara Murphy, MD, System Chair, Department of Medicine, Murray M. Rosenberg Professor of Medicine, Dean for Clinical Integration and Population Health, has identified a panel of 13 genes that does just that. These recently discovered 13 genes are highly predictive of decline in renal function and eventual loss of transplanted kidneys. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Research
Medical Treatment at Home
An innovative program being run by the Mount Sinai Health System has shown that certain acute-care patients who choose to be treated at home rather than in a hospital are not only more satisfied with their care but also have lower medical costs and fewer medical complications.
These findings come amid the halfway point of a three-year plan that was launched by Mount Sinai in November 2014 after receiving a $9.6 million Health Care Innovation Award from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to create a unique “hospital at home” program.
Known as the Mobile Acute Care Team (MACT), the program illustrates Mount Sinai’s commitment to being on the cutting edge of the way medicine will be practiced and creating an innovative health care system for the future, one that emphasizes outpatient, ambulatory, and home-based care with remote monitoring capabilities. The award further highlights Mount Sinai’s role as a pioneer in developing a new clinical and financial reimbursement model for patients with acute illnesses. (more…)
May 21, 2016 | Cardiology, Inside, Research
From left: Rami O. Tadros, MD, FACS; James F. McKinsey, MD, FACS; and Michael L. Marin, MD, FACS, are using a new-generation implantable device to treat complex thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms.
Physicians at The Mount Sinai Hospital were among the first in the nation to implant an investigational device, a fabric and metal mesh tube known as a stent graft, as part of a clinical trial to treat aneurysms located in the thoracic/abdominal area of the aorta. Mount Sinai is one of only six institutions in the nation granted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test the safety and initial feasibility of the device in patients.
The stent graft is used to strengthen the inner lining of the aorta—the main artery that carries blood from the heart to organs—in patients where the aortic walls have weakened and caused a balloon-type bulge known as an aneurysm to grow. Once implanted, the device serves to direct blood flow away from the aneurysm, causing it to shrink in size. If not repaired, the aneurysm can rupture and result in life-threatening internal bleeding. (more…)
May 21, 2016 | Cardiology, Inside, Research
Routine mammograms used for the early detection of breast cancer may also provide women with an early warning of cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study led by Laurie Margolies, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Chief of Breast Imaging at the Dubin Breast Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital. (more…)
