Keeley Beytell-Heron, who was the youngest baby ever to have a kidney transplant, is now 20 years old. Her first transplanted kidney was gradually rejected by her body and at 12 she was given one of her mother's kidneys. Now that it too is failing, her father is going to give her one of his.

Screening for mutations in a gene that helps the body metabolize a kidney transplant anti-rejection drug may predict which children are at higher risk for side effects, including compromised white blood cell count or organ rejection, according to new research.

A new study describes the psychological profile of adolescents who have received kidney transplants and compares them to those of healthy peers. The findings reveal a significantly higher prevalence of psychiatric conditions (depression, phobia, ADHD), educational impairment and social isolation among adolescents who had undergone a transplant.

Kidney transplants are the best available therapy for end stage renal disease. Because of the shortage of deceased organ donors, living donor transplantation is rapidly growing and has the advantage of improved outcomes over deceased donor transplants.

A Johns Hopkins study finds that HIV-positive kidney transplant recipients could have the same one-year survival rates for themselves and their donor organs as those without HIV, provided certain risk factors for transplant failure are recognized and tightly managed.

A Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon has found strong evidence that women over 45 are significantly less likely to be placed on a kidney transplant list than their equivalent male counterparts, even though women who receive a transplant stand an equal chance of survival.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found an association between the genetics of donor-recipient matches in kidney transplants and complications during the first week after transplantation.

A new therapy developed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center improves transplant rates and outcomes for patients awaiting living- and deceased-donor kidney transplantation, according to a study published in the July 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Kidney transplants should be carried out during the day if possible. At least this is the conclusion suggested by a survey just published by urologists and internists at the University of Bonn (Transplantation Proceedings, vol. 40, p. 1341 ff.).

Two researchers from UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System have developed a design for an automated, wearable artificial kidney, or AWAK, that avoids the complications patients often suffer with traditional dialysis.

New analysis of the Heidelberg “Collaborative Transplant Study”: Men and Women benefit from gender specific transplants / Publication in “The Lancet”. The gender of donor and recipient plays a larger role in kidney transplants than previously assumed. Female donor kidneys do not function as well in men – due to their smaller size.

An often asymptomatic condition—systolic dysfunction, or decreased pumping of the heart—poses an increased risk of death for patients on kidney transplant waiting lists, according to a study appearing in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The findings reveal that a clinical indicator beyond well-known risk factors for cardiovascular mortality should be considered when caring for patients waiting for kidney donations.