Transplants

Should alcoholics who have blown out their livers be eligible to receive new livers from organ donors? The answer has been no - at least not until these patients have demonstrated that they won't squander a new organ. Patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis are usually required to go six months without a drink in order to get on the transplant list. But this requirement, while understandable given the scarcity of livers for patients in need, amounts to a death sentence for 70% to 80% of these patients; most of them don't even last two months without a new liver.

When 46-year-old Tammy Lumpkins showed up at Keck Hospital of USC in August, she needed a new heart. Her doctors got her onto the transplant list, but as she waited, her health deteriorated. Her liver and kidneys started to fail and she couldn't get out of bed. "To say she was on the brink of death was an understatement," said Dr. Michael Bowdish, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Keck Hospital. PHOTOS: A new heart So in late September, Bowdish implanted an artificial heart in Lumpkins to replace both of the organ's chambers and all four valves.

Hair-transplant surgery could become cheaper and more accessible with a new robot that plucks hair follicles from the back and sides of the head so they can be moved to the top and front of a balding pate. It normally takes eight to nine hours to individually harvest, by hand, the 1,000 follicle clusters needed to build a full mane of hair, according to Dr. James Harris, director of the Hair Sciences Center of Colorado in Denver. Since the surgery is tricky and time-consuming, fewer than 10% of hair-restoration surgeons do it. Most simply remove a whole strip of scalp and separate out the follicles under a microscope.

Dr. Richard R. Lopez Jr., who once ran the liver transplant program at St. Vincent Medical Center, was acquitted by a federal jury Friday on charges that he led a conspiracy to cover up the misallocation of an organ in 2003. Lopez has acknowledged that he helped decide to take an organ intended for one patient and use it for another more than 50 places down the waiting list — a serious violation of transplant rules that prompted the hospital to shut down the program. At issue was what role Lopez may have played in an extensive effort to hide the breach.

Rob Evans, a 61-year-old social worker from Apache Junction, Ariz., got the good news on Father's Day: After 31/2 years, doctors had found him a heart and were preparing to bring it to UCLA, where he was being treated for a slow, steady decay of his cardiac muscle. Evans had been hospitalized at UCLA for six weeks. Excited, hopeful and anxious all at once, Evans dared imagine a different life: out in the garage remodeling his '69 Nova, riding his horse, wrestling with his grandson and helping his wife, Gail, take care of their barn instead of sitting, exhausted, in his chair all day. FOR THE RECORD: Doctor's name: An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of Dr. Bartley Griffith, the director of heart and lung transplantation at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, as Bartely.

One Marine's tragedy became another's lifeline this month as medical staff on opposite sides of the country worked quickly on an out-of-the-ordinary kidney donation. The fast-paced transplant underscores the deep bond among service members and their families, according to friends and relatives. As Sgt. Jacob Chadwick prepared to leave the hospital Aug. 11, hundreds of police cars and motorcycles escorted 2nd Lt. Patrick Wayland's casket through his hometown of Midland, Texas, where thousands lined the streets waving American flags.

Charla Nash - the Connecticut woman who was mauled by her friend's pet chimpanzee in  2009 - revealed her new face on NBC's "Today" show on Thursday. She  lost her hands, lips, nose and eyes in the attack, along with her ability to see, smell and a speak clearly. The surgery did not restore her sight. Nash is not the first person in the world - or even in the U.S. - to receive a face transplant. More than a dozen of the procedures have been performed in France, Spain, China and the U.S. Here are some milestones regarding the procedure, which is still considered experimental: - The world's first partial face transplant was performed in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire of France after her dog  chewed off her lips, chin and part of her nose.

Face transplant patient Charla Nash, who was disfigured after being mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee two years ago, says she is recovering well and is grateful for the reconstructive surgery that is returning her to a fuller life. In photos released Thursday by Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, Nash is shown with her new face, still swollen but similar in skin tone to her face prior to the attack. Nash, 57, lost her lips, eyes, nose and hands in the attack. Hands were also transplanted in the 20-hour operation in May. However, complications ensued and the hands were removed.

An artificial heart transplant procedure, pioneered and developed in the U.S., has been successfully carried out for the first time in Britain, it was announced Tuesday. Matthew Green, 40, was suffering from arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathia, a disease of the heart muscle that can cause sudden and fatal heart failure. His damaged heart has now been replaced with a plastic, machine-powered Syncardia  temporary Total Artificial Heart and given him a new lease of life while he awaits a suitable heart donor.

Erik Compton spends hours and hours hitting drivers and nine-irons. Sometimes he argues with his putter. He is a golfer, after all, 31 years old and a proud performer on the Nationwide Tour, sort of the triple-A minor leagues for the PGA Tour. This week Compton is playing a PGA Tour event, the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia, and next year he'll most likely be playing full time on the PGA Tour, and if this doesn't seem like a big deal, consider this: Compton is working with his third heart.