Newswise \u2014 For the first time in San Diego County, UC San Diego Health has performed a lung transplant surgery for a patient positive with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).<\/p>\n
Transplanting organs in individuals with infectious diseases requires a highly specialized and coordinated approach. Candidates undergo rigorous screening to ensure their infection is well-controlled, with close attention to the overall health of a person\u2019s immune system and organ function. This requires precise coordination between a multidisciplinary team of transplant surgeons, pulmonologists, infectious disease specialists and pharmacists. Long-term care includes ongoing viral monitoring and individualized medication strategies to optimize patient outcomes.<\/p>\n
Programs capable of performing these complex transplants remain limited due to the level of expertise, infrastructure and care coordination required. As the region\u2019s only academic medical center, the Center for Transplantation at UC San Diego Health is the only transplant center in San Diego County to deliver this level of highly specialized transplant care, not only for patients living with HIV but also for those with other infectious complexities, including hepatitis C and multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis achievement reflects a shift of what is possible in lung transplantation in San Diego,\u201d said Kamyar Afshar, DO<\/a>, medical director of the lung transplant program at UC San Diego Health. \u201cOur goal is to safely expand access and availability to lung transplantation for patients who historically may not have qualified, while maintaining the highest standards of outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n At UC San Diego Health, approximately 50 lung transplant surgeries are performed each year. The program is at the forefront of innovative surgical approaches and advanced therapies, and is among the few centers nationally to use bacteriophage therapy, utilizing viruses that target multidrug-resistant bacteria, to control severe lung infections.<\/p>\n Interviews are available with Afshar, as well as Eugene Golts, MD<\/a>, surgical director of lung transplant at UC San Diego Health, who performed the surgery, and Saima Aslam, MD<\/a>, medical director of the solid organ transplant infectious diseases.<\/p>\n # # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newswise \u2014 For the first time in San Diego County, UC San Diego Health has performed a lung…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[33319,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-334497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-newswise","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}