Health Rounds: Researchers find key to preventing common liver transplant complication

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(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) -Researchers may have found a way to improve success rates of liver transplantation with a workaround for a well-known complication that can cause the new organ to fail, a study in mice suggests.

The liver’s blood supply is cut off when it is removed from the donor. When the blood supply is restored during transplantation into the recipient, the influx sparks inflammation that damages the liver, causing so-called ischemia-reperfusion injury.

The resulting cascade of cellular and molecular events can lead to graft dysfunction and failure.

In previous experiments, the researchers discovered that a protein called CEACAM1 helps protect the liver from injury during the transplantation process.

In their latest study, published in JCI Insights, they discovered that CEACAM1 and another protein called Human Antigen R (HuR) together act as protective switches that prevent ischemia-reperfusion injury.

They also found a way to boost these switches in mice, increasing their protective effect and reducing the damaging stress on the liver.

The researchers also found the same protective relationship between HuR and CEACAM1 in discarded human livers that had been deemed unsuitable for transplantation.

“One of the most intractable problems in the field of organ transplantation remains the nationwide shortage of donor livers, which has led to high patient mortality while waiting for a liver transplant,” study leader Kenneth Dery from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA said in a statement.

“This could ultimately help address the national transplant shortage and lower mortality rates.”

AIR POLLUTION MAY BE HARMING CHILDREN’S EYESIGHT

Air pollution may be harmful to children’s eyesight, while cleaner air may help protect and even improve their vision, a new study suggests.

In particular, exposure to air pollutants – specifically nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) – was associated with how well children could see without glasses, researchers reported in PNAS Nexus.

Genetics and lifestyle factors, such as screen time on electronic devices, are known to play a major role in whether children have myopia, or short-sightedness, in which distant objects appear blurry.

Using advanced machine learning techniques to study air pollution exposure in nearly 30,000 school-aged children, the research team discovered that environmental factors also matter.

After accounting for other myopia risk factors, they found that lower levels of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles in the air were independently associated with better vision.

They also found that primary school students and children with mild-to-moderate myopia benefit more from cleaner air than highly myopic or senior school students, suggesting that early action before vision problems become severe can make a difference.

The study can’t prove that air pollution caused myopia.

Still, it is among the first to isolate air pollution as a meaningful and modifiable risk factor for childhood myopia, study leader Professor Zongbo Shi from the University of Birmingham in the UK said in a statement.

Installing air purifiers in classrooms, creating “clean-air zones” around schools to reduce traffic pollution, and closing streets to cars during school drop-off and pick-up times may have the potential to improve eye health, the researchers said.

“Clean air isn’t just about respiratory health, it’s about visual health too,” Shi said.

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(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)