Immune system tricked to accept donor organs: study
By Julie Steenhuysen
2012/03/08 at 11:29 am EST
CHICAGO, Mar. 8, 2012 (Reuters) — Scientists have found a way to trick the immune system into accepting organs from a mismatched, unrelated organ donor, a finding that could help patients avoid a lifetime of drugs to prevent rejection of the donated organ.
Of eight kidney transplant patients who have been treated with this new approach, five have managed to avoid taking anti-rejection drugs a year after their surgery, according to the study published on Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine.
And one patient, 47-year-old Lindsay Porter of Chicago, is completely free of anti-rejection drugs nearly two years after her kidney transplant.
I hear about the challenges recipients have to face with their medications and it is significant. It's almost surreal when I think about it because I feel so healthy and normal," she said in a statement.
more
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre8270z3-us-immune-organs/
= new reply since forum marked as read
there are significant risks associated with a bone marrow transplant from an umatched donor and even a matched donor. Graft vs. host disease, when the donors cells attack the recipient cells is a major area of concern, my husband had a T cell depleted transplant (they exclude some of the cells to reduce GVHD) last year.
GVHD is a major concern with bone and stem cell transplants. They are making progress, still GVHD is a real threat. With a T cell depleted transplant, and reduced possibilities of GVHD, there is a slower recovery of the immune system which leaves a person more susceptible to complications from external and internal threats.
With any BMT or SCT the person still undergoes a process of killing their entire immune system and the possible complications and side effects from these drugs and the worst case scenario when the graft fails to take hold, leaving the person without an immune system. Not an easy process.
Just wanted to weigh in as they gloss over the bone marrow transplant process, especially from an unmatched donor! 
"...But some experts say the procedure, in which patients undergo a bone marrow transplant from an unmatched organ donor, is too risky, especially given the relative safety of kidney transplants. We have to think about the risks and benefits. Since the current treatment is so stable, it really has to be safe," said Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, a transplant surgeon at Harvard Medical School, who wrote a commentary on the new approach in the journal.."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002286/
"GVHD occurs in a bone marrow or stem cell transplant involving a donor and a recipient. The bone marrow is the soft tissue inside bones that helps form blood cells, including white cells that are responsible for the immune response. Stem cells are normall found inside bone marrow.
Since only identical twins have identical tissue types, a donor's bone marrow is normally a close, but not perfect, match to the recipient's tissues. See: Histocompatibility antigen test
The differences between the donor's cells and recipient's tissues often cause T cells (a type of white blood cells) from the donor to recognize the recipient's body tissues as foreign. When this happens, the newly transplanted cells attack the transplant recipient's body.
Acute GVHD usually happens within the first 3 months after transplant. Chronic GVHD usually starts more than 3 months after transplant, and can last a lifetime.
Rates of GVHD vary from between 30 - 40% among related donors and recipients to 60 - 80% between unrelated donors and recipients. The greater the mismatch between donor and recipient, the greater the risk of GVHD. After a transplant, the recipient usually takes drugs that suppress the immune system, which helps reduce the chances (or severity) of GVHD."
