Organ Transplants

Researchers reported Monday in the journal Nature Medicine that they had coaxed hearts from dead rats to beat again and said the discovery might lead to customized organ transplants for people. The University of Minnesota team used decellularization to wash away existing cells from the hearts of dead rats while leaving the basic collagen structure intact. It injected this gelatin-like scaffold with heart cells from newborn rats, fed the cells a nutrient-rich solution and left them in the lab to grow.

No one in the courtroom Wednesday suggested that Ruben Navarro could have avoided death for long. But whether the severely retarded, comatose 25-year-old was nudged into it by an impatient transplant surgeon is at the core of a legal proceeding unprecedented in the United States. Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 34, has been charged with three felonies in Navarro's 2006 death.

A transplant surgeon accused of illegally hastening the death of a prospective organ donor acted properly when he ordered sizable doses of pain and anxiety medication for the comatose man, the physician's attorney suggested in court Thursday. Gravely ill, Ruben Navarro "was going to die shortly, whether in minutes or in hours," said attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach as he asked a question of a witness. "In that situation, you err on the side of ensuring that he's pain-free."

He sits quietly at the corner cafe, a gold watch flickering on his wrist. If you need a liver, or want to sell a piece of yours, grab a chair and get acquainted with Mustafa Hamed, a 24-year-old ex-bus driver who fell unexpectedly into a life as a broker in human organs. Hamed's 4-year-old son, Mohamed, was dying of cancer and needed an artery transplant that cost $5,000. The only savings Hamed had was what he fished from his pockets at the end of the day.

A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Sonny Graham was on the verge of congestive heart failure in 1995 when he got a call that a heart was available in Charleston. That heart was from Terry Cottle, 33, who had shot himself. Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor's family and later met and married his donor's widow, Cheryl Cottle, then 28. No foul play was suspected in 69-year-old Graham's death in Vidalia.

An influential U.S. senator sent a series of letters Friday seeking additional details about four liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center involving patients who were suspected members or associates of Japanese organized crime groups. "While surgeons do not seek to pass moral judgment on the patients they treat, Americans hope at the very least that foreign criminal figures wait in line along with the rest of us," Sen. Charles E.

The mastermind behind a multimillion-dollar scheme to loot hundreds of corpses, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, and sell bone and tissue for transplants was sentenced to 18 to 54 years in prison. Michael Mastromarino, 44, who owned New Jersey-based Biomedical Tissue Services, pleaded guilty to enterprise corruption, body stealing and reckless endangerment.

When you're lying in bed and can't keep food down, muscle metabolizes first. Dr. Zhaoping Li, my UCLA clinical nutritionist, says the rate is two to three pounds of muscle wasted for every pound of fat. Bug-eyed and big-bellied with fluid after four months' hospitalization for liver failure, I had legs and arms like matchsticks. I could walk no farther than one block. Me, the lifelong athlete, former aerobics instructor and dancer -- now wait-listed for a transplant.

Heart transplant patients are as much as 25% more likely to survive if the sex of the donor is the same as the patient's, researchers said Wednesday. The results surprised experts because, for most types of transplants, sex differences are irrelevant as long as a good immunocompatability is achieved.

A woman being treated at the Cleveland Clinic has an almost entirely new face following the most extensive facial transplant ever performed, the medical center said Tuesday. The surgery was the first face transplant in the U.S. and the fourth in the world. Few details about the patient have been released in advance of a news conference scheduled for today. About 80% of the patient's face was replaced with skin and muscles harvested from a cadaver.