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Understanding Transplantation

  “Transplantation” in the medical field is defined as “the process of taking living tissue such as stem cells or organs and implanting them in another part of the body or in another body”. The examples of transplantation of “cells” include ordinary blood transfusion and stem cell transplantation often used to treat blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphomas. This blog deals with the intricacies of the organ transplantation and was inspired by a recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2021. The authors reviewed the state of art in organ transplantation and wondered if the factories manufacturing beating hearts and inflating and deflating lungs were around the corner? The stem cells (parent cells) that have the capacity to make a variety of tissues in our bodies, have successfully been coaxed to grow in the test tubes and petri dishes to grow into sheet of cells to resemble skin or tubular structures that have been used as replacements fo...
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5 Things We Should Know About Infection Control, Viruses and Respiratory Droplets.

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  5 Things We Should Know About Infection Control, Viruses and Respiratory Droplets. Courtesy of: CDC Project First Line   The CDC created the Inside Infection Control vlog series to share some basic ideas behind infection control, how they apply to COVID-19 and how these ideas can help yourself and others.   The difference between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is the scientific name of the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 Symptoms   A person with the disease COVID-19 may experience these symptoms: fever, chills, cough, difficulty breathing, etc. When discussing the pandemic, we often talk about the number of people with COVID-19. All viruses have a couple of parts, including genes and proteins. These parts help the virus get around inside the infected person's body and transmit to others. The genes contain the information a virus needs to multiply. Most of the proteins in a virus come together to create a shell or...
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What is worse: Side Effects of Covid Vaccine or the Covid-19?

    One of the frequent comments from the hesitant unvaccinated Americans is that they need more data to be sure that the Covid vaccines are safe.  No vaccine is absolutely safe and various side effects in healthy volunteers have been reported in the vaccine related clinical trials. However, there is pre-ponderance of evidence that the adverse events associated with Covid-19 are far greater (including death), than the adverse effects of the Covid vaccine.  A recent paper from Israel caught my attention and is the subject of this blog.  The study was published in the “New England Journal of Medicine”, one of the most prestigious peer reviewed medical journals. As I scanned the table of content of my September 16 issue, I quickly jumped to the paper titled “Safety of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine in a Nationwide Setting” by Dr. Barda and his colleagues and the accompanying editorial. .  This large observational study was carried out in Israe...
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Disparities in Cancer Care for Black Americans

  Disparities in Cancer Care for Black Americans Inequality in our society can be measured by wealth, educational level, opportunities, and other factors including healthcare. Inequality in cancer care for Black Americans was the subject of one-page graphic presentation in the “Clinical Oncology Update” section of the New England Journal of Medicine few weeks ago. The article titled “By the Numbers: Racial / Ethnic Disparities” is the subject of this blog. According to the American Cancer Society’s estimate, there will be 1.89 million new cases and 608,00 deaths due to cancer in the USA this year. The good news is that the death rate from cancer has continued to decline in the United States. From 1991 to 2018, the overall cancer death rate has fallen 31% . The bad news is that Black Americans have not benefited from this decline as much as other citizens have. While the decrease in the death rate is mostly due to decrease in smoking, it is also due to the discovery, appr...
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I have been vaccinated for Covid. Now what?

 Congratulations. You have taken a step towards being protected and towards the threshold of living without the fear of Covid-19 affliction. But you are not there yet.   An elder of my family recently wrote to me stating that he had himself tested for antibodies to the coronavirus a month after having been fully vaccinated. The result came back as disappointingly low level of antibodies.   So he asked: What am I supposed to do now?   Nothing different that you have been doing all along, I said.  The same standard operating principals: Maintain social distance, cover face and nose and hand hygiene. Since you don’t have a strong level of antibodies, you are not fully protected. Antibody testing after vaccination is not recommended by the CDC at this time.   He was not happy to hear this but recognized that Covid-19 being a new infection and a pandemic, there was no one straight answer.   No single action offers 100% protection, whereas the outc...
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Differences between various Covid Vaccines

  Millions of doses of different Covid vaccines are now available. Which one should one get, is the question? My answer: Whichever is available in your community. All of them are effective, although none is 100% effective. It is however certain that vaccines will reduce the severity of the infection even if they cannot fully protect us against the virus. Does everyone develop immunity after vaccination? We hope so. It depends on many factors. Individuals with less robust immune system due to factors such as age, underlying health conditions and current medications, may not develop enough protection. Some vaccines may have degraded during storage and transportation. We must be kept in mind of reports of fake vaccines that are being sold in some countries. The race to develop and produce large quantities of vaccines against the coronavirus is on. Whereas many countries have developed vaccines and are on their way to vaccinate their respective citizens, billions of the people in the...
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Interpreting Diagnostic Tests for the Novel Coronavirus

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) helps us interpret the tests done in Covid-19 illness.   Thus far, the most reliable test for the diagnosis of Covid-19 illness has been the RT-PCR test of the nasal cavity secretions taken with a swab. This test can also be performed on swabs taken from the throat, the saliva, the sputum and even from stools. However, the results of secretions from the nasal cavity are most accurate and reliable. RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) is a genomic test that looks for the membrane or the nuclear proteins of the virus. To identify the presence of the virus from the tiny amount of the viral proteins picked up on the swab, the machine in the laboratory amplifies the genomic content by 20-60 or even 100-fold. Of course, if the viral load (the amount of virus and viral proteins) on the swab is high, then less amplification is needed for the RT-PCR test and vice versa. The journal...
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