AJT Highlights

[02:08] Robotic living donor hepatectomy is associated with superior outcomes for both the donor and the recipient compared to laparoscopic or open - A single center prospective registry study of 3,448 cases [09:34] Public Attitudes to Xenotransplantation: A National Survey in the United States [18:09] Non-clinical and clinical characterization of MAU868, a novel human-derived monoclonal neutralizing antibody targeting BK polyomavirus VP1 [25:52] Establishing targets for goal-directed anesthesia in renal transplantation: a cohort analysis of high-saliency surgical time-courses. Editorial: Intraoperative blood pressure management during kidney transplantation: grafts under pressure. [36:53] Why partial heart transplantation could be regulated as organ transplantation

Hosts Roz and Josh are joined by Frances Lee, MD to discuss the key articles of the October issue of American Journal of Transplantation.   [00:02:31] Pre-transplant Use of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Multicenter, Retrospective Cohort Study Editorial: Integrating immune check inhibitors in liver transplantation for hepatocellular carcinoma: The right time and the right patient [00:11:46] Association of Procurement Technique with Organ Yield and Cost Following Donation After Circulatory Death Editorial: Dawn Has Arrived, Illuminating Thrilling Opportunities and Fresh Challenges in a New Era of U.S. Transplantation [00:24:53] Common Definitions and Variables are Needed for the United States to Join the Conversation on Acute on Chronic Liver Failure [00:33:15] Enhanced role of multipair donor swaps in response to size incompatibility: The first two 5-way and the first 6-way liver paired exchanges [00:40:15] Comparing the prognostic performance of iBOX and biopsy-proven acute rejection for long-term kidney graft survival [00:48:22] Incomplete reporting of clinically significant acute rejection episodes in the National Kidney Transplant Registry

Hosts Roz and Josh are joined by Alissar El Chediak, MD to discuss the key articles of the September issue of the American Journal of Transplantation. Alissar El Chediak, MD is a transplant nephrologist at UT Southwestern   [02:55] – Liver Machine Perfusion Technology: Expanding the Donor Pool to Improve Access to Liver Transplantation [08:01] – Editorial: Machine perfusion and liver transplant center behavior: Answers or more questions? [11:01] - Obesity, Organ Failure, and Transplantation: A Review of the Role of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery in Transplant Candidates and Recipients. [18:48] – Virus Specific T Cell Therapy to Treat Refractory Viral infections in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients [25:08] - Third-party virus-specific T cells for the treatment of double-stranded DNA viral reactivation and posttransplant lymphoproliferative disease after solid organ transplant [28:48] – Editorial: Virus-specific T-cell efficacy after solid organ transplantation: more questions than answers [34:05] - Successful BK virus–specific T cell therapy in a kidney transplant recipient with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy [37:50] - The prevalence of postacute sequelae of coronavirus disease 2019 in solid organ transplant recipients: Evaluation of risk in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative

Description:  Hosts Roz and Josh are joined by Maria Alejandra Mendoza, MD to discuss the key articles of the August issue of American Journal of Transplantation.   [01:57] Impact of deceased organ donor marijuana use on donor culture positivity and solid organ transplant recipient outcomes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.02.022 [13:11] China Issued Rules on Human Organ Donation and Transplantation https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.04.002 [21:10] Advancing Mouse Models for Transplantation Research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.01.006 [30:05] Differential induction of donor-reactive Foxp3+ Treg via blockade of CD154 vs. CD40 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.03.033 [40:27] Total Robotic Liver Transplant: The Final Frontier of Minimally Invasive Surgery https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.03.030

Hosts Roz and Josh are joined by Mack Morris, MD to discuss the key articles of the July issue of American Journal of Transplantation. [03:33] Biliary complications after adult-to-adult living-donor liver transplantation: An international multicenter study of 3633 cases https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.02.023  [13:07] The impact of time to death in donors after circulatory death on recipient outcome in simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.02.008  [24:30] Should advanced perfusion be the standard of care for donation after circulatory death liver transplant? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.03.021  [32:20] Immunosuppression Withdrawal in Living-donor Renal Transplant Recipients Following Induction with Anti-thymocyte Globulin and Rituximab: Results of a Prospective Clinical Trial https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.03.007  [40:30] Spatial multiomics of arterial regions from cardiac allograft vasculopathy rejected grafts reveal novel insights into the pathogenesis of chronic antibody-mediated rejection https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajt.2024.01.004 

In this specialty podcast, AJT Fellow and host David Cron is joined by Jesse Schold and Joel Adler to provide an overview policy evaluation in transplantation, including analytical approaches, pitfalls, and best practices. References Stewart et al. “Does anyone really know what (the kidney median waiting) time is?”   Noreen et al. “Augmenting the United States transplant registry with external mortality data: A moving target ripe for further improvement” Shifman et al. “Association of state Medicaid expansion policies with pediatric liver transplant outcomes”

Host Roz is joined by AJT Associate Editor Orla Morrissey, MD (Monash University) and AJT Editorial Fellow Elena-Bianca Barbir, MD (Mayo Clinic-Rochester). [3:16] The respiratory syncytial virus vaccines are here: Implications for solid organ transplantation [19:14] Association between cytomegalovirus viremia and long-term outcomes in lung transplant recipients [35:40] Genetic versus self-reported African ancestry of the recipient and neighborhood predictors of kidney transplantation outcomes in 2 multiethnic urban cohorts [EDITORIAL] Untangling genetic and environmental risks in kidney transplant outcomes: The interplay of self-identified race, genetic ancestry, monogenic risk alleles, and socioeconomic factors [45:15] Low-affinity CD8+ T cells provide interclonal help to high-affinity CD8+ T cells to augment alloimmunity [53:44] Outcomes in solid organ transplant recipients with a pretransplant diagnosis of melanoma

In this AJT specialty podcast, Luise Holzhauser, hosts Shelley Hall and Marie Budev to discuss the impact of the 2018 change in heart allocation and what the heart community can learn from experiences with continuous distribution of lung.

Host Roz is joined by AJT Executive Guest Editor Nadim Mahmud, MD, MPH (University of Pennsylvania) and AJT Editorial Fellow Tina Marinelli, MBBS, MPH&TM,  FRACP (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital).   [03:10] Semidirected Living Donors in Israel: Sociodemographic Profile, Religiosity, and Social Tolerance   [11:54] TCRseq Reveals Selected Donor-reactive CD8+ T cell Clones Resist Anti-Thymocyte Globulin Depletion after Kidney Transplantation   [18:47] Natural killer cell functional genetics and donor-specific antibody-triggered microvascular inflammation   [26:36] Surgical site infections after kidney transplantation are independently associated with graft loss   [38:26] Introduction to Virtual Special Issue, Insights into ACLF: From Pathogenesis to Interventions   [39:21] Immunopathogenesis of acute on chronic liver failure   [43:43] Geographic disparities in access to liver transplant for advanced cirrhosis: Time to ring the alarm!

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Allan Kirk, MD, PhD, (Duke University) and AJT Editorial Fellow Laura Binari, MD (Vanderbilt University). [2:34] Abdominal computed tomography measurements of body composition and waitlist mortality in kidney transplant candidates [14:09] A2/A2B to B deceased donor kidney transplantation in the Kidney Allocation System era [24:01] Xenotransplantation Papers [25:07] Xenotransplantation experiments in brain-dead human subjects–A critical appraisal [28:11] The decedent model: A new paradigm for de-risking high stakes clinical trials like xenotransplantation [32:45] Exploring the single-cell immune landscape of kidney allograft inflammation using imaging mass cytometry

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Board Member Alexandre Loupy, MD, PhD (Necker Hospital) and AJT Editorial Fellow Thiago J Borges, PhD (Massachusetts General Hospital). [2:39] Transplanting old organs promotes senescence in young recipients [11:33] The Banff 2022 Kidney Meeting Report: Reappraisal of microvascular inflammation and the role of biopsy-based transcript diagnostics [15:45] The Banff 2022 Kidney Meeting Work Plan: Data-driven refinement of the Banff Classification for renal allografts (Editorial) [18:12] The Banff process—Reloaded: A joint initiative from the Banff Foundation for Allograft Pathology and the American Journal of Transplantation [20:25] Antiobesity pharmacotherapy to facilitate living kidney donation [27:04] Ambient air pollution is associated with graft failure/death in pediatric liver transplant recipients

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Board Member John Greenland, MD, PhD (University of California, San Francisco) and AJT Editorial Fellow David Cron, MD, MS (Massachusetts General Hospital). [2:53] Pure laparoscopic donor hepatectomy: Experience of 556 cases at Seoul National University Hospital [11:26] Smoking exposure-induced bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue in donor lungs does not prevent tolerance induction after transplantation & Aging exacerbates murine lung ischemia-reperfusion injury by excessive inflammation and impaired tissue repair response [20:28] Augmenting the Unites States transplant registry with external mortality data: A moving target ripe for further improvement (Editorial) How hard are the hard outcomes reported in national transplant registries? [32:25] Maintaining the permanence principle of death during normothermic regional perfusion in controlled donation after the circulatory determination of death: Results of a prospective clinical study

The podcast discusses the impact and implications the kidney allocation system (KAS 250) has had over kidney allocation in the United States, focusing on the effect on operational challenges, cold ischemic times, delayed graft function, and organ discard rates. Guest speakers include Joel Adler (Dell Medical School, University of Texas in Austin) and John Friedewald (Northwestern Memorial Hospital).

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Board Member Michael Mengel, MD (University of Alberta) and AJT Editorial Fellow Kazem Fallahzadeh, MD (Emory University). [2:43] Recurrent atypical antiglomerular basement membrane nephritis in the kidney transplant [14:26] Pretransplantation coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination requirements: A matched case-control study of factors associated with waitlist inactivation (Editorial) Coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine mandates and the Owl of Minerva [21:45] Incomplete tissue product tracing during an investigation of a tissue-derived tuberculosis outbreak [29:48] Risk for graft loss in pediatric and young adult kidney transplant recipients due to recurrent IgA nephropathy [37:07] De novo membranous nephropathy in a pig-to-baboon kidney xenograft: A new xenograft glomerulopathy

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Board Member Emily Blumberg, MD (University of Pennsylvania) and AJT Editorial Fellow Dempsey Hughes, MD (Northwestern Medicine). [03:03] Predicting post–liver transplant outcomes in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure using Expert-Augmented Machine Learning [10:34] Clinical features, treatment, and outcomes of mpox in solid organ transplant recipients: A multicenter case series and literature review [14:05] First case of rapidly fatal mpox from secondary (household) transmission in a kidney transplant recipient [15:28] A joint program of antimicrobial stewardship and hospital-acquired infection control to reduce healthcare-associated infections after kidney transplantation: The Hipomenes study [22:55] A rational approach to guide cost-effective de novo donor-specific antibody surveillance with tacrolimus immunosuppression [30:04] (Editorial) Personalizing kidney transplant donor-specific antibody surveillance: The devil is in the details [33:20] Donor antigen-specific regulatory T cell administration to recipients of live donor kidneys: A ONE Study consortium pilot trial

In this specialty podcast, Arielle Cimeno, hosts Raymond Lynch and Amit Mathur to discuss recent trends and new initiatives to assess kidney utilization and organ procurement organization performance.  

Host Roz is joined by Ramsey Hachem, MD (Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis) and AJT Editorial Fellow Helen Tsai, MD (Montefiore Medical Center)  [03:30] Disseminated vaccine-induced varicella infection in a kidney transplant recipient [06:50] Safety and Immunogenicity of the Live-Attenuated Varicella Vaccine in Pediatric Solid Organ Transplant Recipients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis [10:34] (Editorial) Balancing the live virus vaccine scales: protection vs risk [14:22] Outcomes after flow cytometry crossmatch-positive lung transplants managed with perioperative desensitization [19:25] Lung transplantation despite preformed donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies: 9-year single-center experience [23:00] (Editorial) What is a Clinically Significant Donor-Specific Antibody Before Lung Transplantation? [25:38] Deceased Donor Kidneys from Higher Distressed Communities are Significantly Less Likely to be Utilized for Transplantation [35:11] (Editorial) Understanding the mechanisms and implications of the association between community distress and organ non-utilization [37:18] Sex as a Biological Variable: Mechanistic Insights and Clinical Relevance in Solid Organ Transplantation

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Fellow Salil Kumar, MD (incoming Assistant Professor at MD Anderson Medical Center) [2:24] Importance of social vulnerability on long-term outcomes after heart transplantation [12:51] Microbiota-dependent and -independent effects of obesity on transplant rejection and hyperglycemia [21:26] Memory T follicular helper cells drive donor-specific antibodies independent of memory B cells and primary germinal center and alloantibody formation [28:52] Validation of a prediction system for risk of kidney allograft failure in pediatric kidney transplant recipients: An international observational study [36:44] Qualifying a novel clinical trial endpoint (iBOX) predictive of long-term kidney transplant outcomes

Host Roz is joined by AJT Editorial Board Member Kenneth Newell, MD, PhD (Emory University) and AJT Editorial Fellow Kyle Jackson, MD, PhD (Emory University) [2:45] Identifying and understanding variation in population-based access to liver transplantation in the United States [12:44] Intra-graft B cell differentiation during the development of tolerance to kidney allografts is associated with a regulatory B cell signature revealed by single cell transcriptomics [18:21] Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals peripheral blood mononuclear immune cell landscape associated with operational tolerance in a kidney transplant recipient [22:20] Impact of allele-specific anti-HLA class I antibodies on organ allocation [28:12] Autoantibodies against DNA-topoisomerase I promote renal allograft rejection by increasing alloreactive T cell responses

In this specialty podcast, Carrie Thiessen, MD, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison) hosts Robert Montgomery, MD, PhD, (NYU Langone) and Muhammad Mohiuddin, MBBS, (University of Maryland) to discuss ethical issues related to informed authorization and informed consent for decedent kidney and human cardiac xenotransplants.