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Easier transplant rules for alcoholics
Alcoholics who do not show they can stay sober outside hospital are expected to be offered liver transplants for the first time next month.
A group of experts in liver disease will propose the change despite a shortage of organs. Under current guidelines, candidates for new livers have to show they can abstain from drink, usually for six months, before doctors approve a transplant.
The proposed lifting of the ban follows the death in July of Gary Reinbach, 22, from Dagenham, east London. He had severe alcohol-induced liver disease. Reinbach’s doctors believed only a transplant could save him but he was too ill to leave hospital and prove he could stay sober.
A panel of doctors working for the liver advisory group has been swayed by a trial in Lille, northern France, involving 18 alcoholics with liver disease who had not been well enough to show they could remain sober before their transplants.
Fifteen were still alive six months later compared with 44% of patients who had not received a new organ. The patients who received the transplants did not start drinking again.
Next month the liver advisory group will be asked to approve a similar trial in Britain. Dr Alexander Gimson, chairman of the group, is in favour of the change but said that it would be opposed by other patients waiting for a liver transplant.
There are 268 patients waiting for a liver; 91 died on the waiting list last year.
Individuals who experience the physical, mental and social symptoms associated with alcohol dependence are offered hope through the results of two recent studies by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). In separate investigations, researchers found favorable results for a medication to help heavy drinkers who are trying to modify their consumption, as….
Those who suffer from alcohol addiction often continue to drink simply to forgo any withdrawal symptoms from occurring. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a potentially life threatening illness that can last for many days or even weeks following an individual’s decision to stop drinking but there is help. Many options are available for alcohol withdrawal symptoms treatment….
In Montana, underage drinking is often thought of as a “rite of passage” that every teen goes through. It is seen as a harmless pastime. The exact opposite is true; this “harmless pastime” contributes to more deaths among our youth than any other preventable cause. Recent studies in brain development show that the human brain….
Patients in therapy to overcome addictions have a new arena to test their coping skills—the virtual world. A new study by University of Houston Associate Professor Patrick Bordnick found that a virtual reality (VR) environment can provide the climate necessary to spark an alcohol craving so that patients can practice how to say “no” in….
I had an interesting Blog Comment from Pavel Nepustil, a Czech republic NGO worker and PhD student, currently in Houston, USA, on a Fullbright Scholarship. Pavel came over to see us in Cardiff last year and we decided we would work together. He is one bright ‘cookie’ and very dedicated to this field. He got….