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Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

latimes.com

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Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#21

Post by aphextim »

peterlk wrote: post #12
Medicalidiot wrote: post #7

This is to be expected. Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Heart transplants recipients all get accelerated atherosclerosis. Lung transplant recipients all get long term fibrosis. We buy time with these procedures and do everything we can to keep them going, but if you have a transplant, you're in a really bad spot…

I just finished up an introductory biology lecture series, and this suddenly makes less sense to me than it did before. What is it about the foreign cells that is identified as foreign by the host cells? The cells ought to be remarkably similar. They're human, with the same function/pluripotency using the same protein interactions. So why attack it?

Probably has some sort of MAC address identifier that can detect whether something if different than the host DNA, but I have no idea nor experience in biology.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#22

Post by abbirdboy »

peterlk wrote: post #12
Medicalidiot wrote: post #7

This is to be expected. Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Heart transplants recipients all get accelerated atherosclerosis. Lung transplant recipients all get long term fibrosis. We buy time with these procedures and do everything we can to keep them going, but if you have a transplant, you're in a really bad spot…

I just finished up an introductory biology lecture series, and this suddenly makes less sense to me than it did before. What is it about the foreign cells that is identified as foreign by the host cells? The cells ought to be remarkably similar. They're human, with the same function/pluripotency using the same protein interactions. So why attack it?

Adding to some of the other comments: Leukocytes (immune cells) such as B and T cells will undergo "education" when they are developing. For example, B cells, before being released, will go through something called central tolerance in the bone marrow. If the B cell receptors bind a "self" antigen (markers that are associated with our own cells) while developing, it will go through negative selection and be destroyed. Of course, some B cells that bind self antigens do make it through in rare cases and this is what manifests as an autoimmune disease.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#23

Post by arkades »

radlad wrote: post #20
Medicalidiot wrote: post #7

This is to be expected. Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Heart transplants recipients all get accelerated atherosclerosis. Lung transplant recipients all get long term fibrosis. We buy time with these procedures and do everything we can to keep them going, but if you have a transplant, you're in a really bad spot…

> Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Is this true that it is inevitable? My understanding, from my girlfriend attending medical school (only M1), is that for many types of transplants, when immunosupressants are taken properly, it is unlikely that the organ will ever be rejected. For example, only 10-20% of patient…

“Only 20%” and “unlikely to ever be rejected” are worlds apart.

Modern immunosuppressive therapy for, for instance kidneys, has dropped the five year acute rejection rate from 50% to 20%. About 8-10% in the first year.

You can get a 5% 10-year non-rejection rate only in the most hand-picked groups (adheres to meds, no underlying systemic disease, and no chronic nephropathy). That sub-population exists, but it’s pretty uncommon.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#24

Post by markkat »

FreeFull wrote: post #9
Medicalidiot wrote: post #7

This is to be expected. Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Heart transplants recipients all get accelerated atherosclerosis. Lung transplant recipients all get long term fibrosis. We buy time with these procedures and do everything we can to keep them going, but if you have a transplant, you're in a really bad spot…

I wonder how long it will take until growing organs from the recipient's own stem cells is actually viable. There definitely is some interesting research, and it would completely circumvent the problems with the immune system.

This issue is why I started Forever Labs (YCS17). We bank your stem cells. Immunity presents many difficult problems to be solved. I’d rather worry about the therapeutic developments alone rather than add immunity on top of it.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#25

Post by xwdv »

aphextim wrote: post #21
peterlk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished up an introductory biology lecture series, and this suddenly makes less sense to me than it did before. What is it about the foreign cells that is identified as foreign by the host cells? The cells ought to be remarkably similar. They're human, with the same function/pluripotency using the same protein interactions. So why attack it?

Probably has some sort of MAC address identifier that can detect whether something if different than the host DNA, but I have no idea nor experience in biology.

I’d say it’s probably more like some kind of checksum against the DNA. If the body detects something has been changed from what was there before it dispatches the white blood cells to kill it off. Immunosuppressants are a way to bypass the checksum, but only for some limited time. Maybe we need a way to change the checksum values altogether, but then the whole body could be rendered rejected and cease to function (death).

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#26

Post by rcombine »

anon9001 wrote: post #18

> “We all know we are in uncharted waters,” Tarleton said. “I would rather not have to go through a catastrophic failure.” If anyone hasn't been through some tragic medical shit in their life, pay attention to that. You'll understand it later.

This is what gets me. Take care of yourself, because you don't know what kind of Sword of Damocles is hanging over your head.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#27

Post by plutonorm »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #11
egypturnash wrote: post #5

I so do not want to click on this link in case there are pictures. I really do not want to see what this looks like. Are there pictures?

There's a pic and it's not so pretty. What's much worse to me is the description of what her husband did to her. Consider skipping this one altogether.

I'm a live and let live, everyone has their own pain and their own story, we all are just doing our best sort of guy... But I want to string that guy up.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#29

Post by wongarsu »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #15
peterlk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished up an introductory biology lecture series, and this suddenly makes less sense to me than it did before. What is it about the foreign cells that is identified as foreign by the host cells? The cells ought to be remarkably similar. They're human, with the same function/pluripotency using the same protein interactions. So why attack it?

Because it's part of the arms race with pathogens that has been going on for a billion years since multi-cellular life first appeared. Pathogens do lots of very clever things to hide from the immune system, so the immune system is tuned to detect very subtle changes. The body largely operates on zero-trust network models, except for a few locations where the benefit of a too-active immune system has serious consequen…

To add to this: if the immune system would just check that the cell is human then every invader would just evolve to pass that check. The only viable way to defend is to mark the cells as belonging to this specific human. That way even if some bacteria evolves to trick my immune system it's unlikely to also trick yours, and the infection can't spread.

Re: Face transplant recipient’s donor face now failing

#30

Post by ravar »

Medicalidiot wrote: post #7

This is to be expected. Any time we do any transplant immunosupressants are given to the recipient for the rest of their life, but this only slows the inevitable. Heart transplants recipients all get accelerated atherosclerosis. Lung transplant recipients all get long term fibrosis. We buy time with these procedures and do everything we can to keep them going, but if you have a transplant, you're in a really bad spot…

I recently listened to this podcast. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21051174 It is about widespread fraud in the drug industry. During the interview it was mentioned that some people are seeing organ failure due getting fraudulent drugs from abroad. It is possible that this is not what happened in this case, but it seems plausible. To anyone who has the time, listen to this podcast. It was really educational and scary, pharmaceuticals fraud is no joke.

*The interview discusses the material in Katherine Eban's book Bottle of Lies.

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