Organ commercialism, trafficking and transplant tourism

The gap between demand and supply of organs continues to widen worldwide, encouraging transplant commercialism. While solid organ commerce is most prevalent in impoverished countries, commercialisation of body parts such as tissues is prevalent in economically developed countries. A number of international legal instruments and transplant societies define, condemn, and criminalise these practices and have issued statements related to organ commercialism. In contrast, limited attention has been paid to illicit and unethical activities associated with the procurement and clinical use of tissues. In India, The Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act, 2011, has taken multiple measures to combat organ and tissue commerce and as a result the number of such instances seems to be on the decline. However, the fight against unethical organ procurement through the internet and the social media is challenging and requires the cooperation of global bodies. Keywords: Organ trade, Declaration of Istanbul, tissue commerce, organ transplants, transplant tourism

Phaeohyphomycosis: a clinical-epidemiological and diagnostic study of eighteen cases in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

The goal of this study was to review 18 cases of phaeohyphomycosis in Rio Grande do Sul. The records of all of the patients with a diagnosis of phaeohyphomycosis between 1995-2010 were reviewed. Twelve of the 18 patients (66.6%) were male. The average age of the patients was 50 years old (range: 16-74 years). Eleven patients (61%) presented with subcutaneous lesions. Seven patients (38.8%) had received a solid organ transplant. In all of the cases, the presence of melanin in the fungal cells was determined by Fontana-Masson staining of tissue sections and documented. Among the 18 patients, a total of 11 different fungal species were isolated. The causative organisms included Exophiala jeanselmei, Alternaria, Curvularia, Cladophialophora and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides. To our knowledge, this review reports the first case of subcutaneous phaeohyphomycosis caused by C. gloeosporioides in a lung transplant patient. The number of reported cases of phaeohyphomycosis has increased in the last decade. In a number of cases, this increased incidence may be primarily attributed to iatrogenic immunodeficiency.

Aplicação de técnicas de inteligência artificial em transplantes renais: classificadores automáticos para nefrotoxicidade e rejeição celular aguda / Application of artificial intelligence techniques in kidney transplantation: automatic classification of nephrotoxicity and acute cellular rejection

Introdução: Complicações associadas ao transplante de rim e imunossupressão podem ser prevenidas ou tratadas efetivamente quando são diagnosticadas em fases iniciais com o monitoramento pós-transplante. Objetivo: O objetivo deste estudo exploratório é comparar classificadores automáticos de padrões utilizando diferentes técnicas de inteligência artificial para prever eventos de nefrotoxicidade e rejeição celular aguda (RCA) em pacientes com até um ano do transplante renal. Métodos: Foram realizados testes estatísticos de incidência e regressão logística nas variáveis em relação à nefrotoxicidade e RCA. Foram utilizados diferentes classificadores (redes neurais, support vector machines (SVM), árvores de decisão, inferência bayesiana, e vizinhos mais próximos) com o objetivo de prever RCA e nefrotoxicidade. Os classificadores foram avaliados segundo o valor de sensibilidade, especificidade e área sob a curva ROC (AUC). Resultados: A incidência de RCA foi de 31,0% e de nefrotoxicidade de 26,9%. A técnica que apresentou o melhor valor de sensibilidade foi a SVM (algoritmo LIBSVM) com sensibilidade 0,87 (taxa de acerto 79,86%; especificidade 0,70; AUC 0,79). A técnica que apresentou o melhor valor de AUC para prever nefrotoxicidade ou RCA foi a de inferência bayesiana (algoritmo NaiveBayes) com AUC 0,80 (taxa de acerto 75,92%). Conclusão: Os resultados são animadores, com taxas de tentativa e erro condizentes com a determinação de rejeição celular aguda e nefrotoxicidade.

Background: Complications associated with kidney transplantation and immunosuppression can be prevented or treated effectively if diagnosed in early stages with monitoring post-transplant. Objective: The objective of this exploratory study is compare automatic classifiers using different techniques of artificial intelligenceáto predict events of nephrotoxicity and acute cellular rejection (ACR), with up to one year of renal transplantation Methods: The incidence and the statistical test logistic regression have been calculated in variables regarding nephrotoxicity and ACR.áWe used different classifiers (neural networks, support vector machines (SVM), decision trees, Bayesian inference, and closest neighbors) in order to provide ACR and nephrotoxicity. The classifiers were evaluated according to the value of sensitivity, specificity and area under ROC curve (AUC). Results: The prevalence of acute cellular rejection was 31.0% and 26.9% of nephrotoxicity. The technique had the highest sensitivity value prediction for the submission to the transplanted kidney biopsy was SVM (LIBSVM algorithm) with sensitivity rates of 0.87 (accuracy rate 79.86; specificity 0.70; AUC 0.79). The technique had the highest AUC for predicting nephrotoxicity and ACR was bayesian inference (NaiveBayes), with AUC rates of 0.8 (accuracy rate 75.92).Conclusion: The results are encouraging, with rates of accuracy and error consistent with the determination of acute cellular rejection and nephrotoxicity.

Calidad de vida y estrategias de afrontamiento en pacientes con insuficiencia renal crónica sometidos a hemodiálisis, diálisis peritoneal o trasplante renal / Quality of life and coping strategies in patients with chronic renal failure undergoing hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis or kidney transplantation

Se comparó la calidad de vida y las estrategias de afrontamiento en 120 pacientes con Insuficiencia Renal Crónica sometidos a hemodiálisis, diálisis peritoneal o trasplante renal, teniendo en cuenta la edad, sexo, escolaridad, estado civil y ocupación. Los instrumentos utilizados fueron una ficha sociodemográfica, la prueba de calidad de vida WHOQOL-100 (Organización Mundial de la Salud, 1998) y el Cuestionario de Estrategias de Afrontamiento (Lazarus & Folkman, 1985). Se encontró que los pacientes en tratamiento de trasplante reportaban mayor calidad de vida y mejores estrategias de afrontamiento en comparación con los otros tratamientos, siendo mayores las puntuaciones en personas con edad de transición entre adultez media y tardía, mujeres, con estudios universitarios, casados y empleados. Se discuten las implicaciones de estos hallazgos.

This study compares the quality of life and the coping strategies in 120 patients with chronic renal failure undergoing hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, or kidney transplantation. This comparison is made taking into account patients’ age, sex, education level, marital status and occupation. The instruments used were a sociodemographic record, the quality of life assessment instrument WHOQOL-100 (World Health Organization, 1998) and the coping strategies questionnaire (Lazarus & Folkman, 1985). It was found that treatment of transplant patients reported better quality of life, and better coping strategies compared to patients in other treatments; particularly, treatment of transplant patients that were married, that were employed, that were in the transition between middle and late adulthood, women and patients with college, showed higher scores in quality of life and coping strategies than other groups. The implications of these findings are discussed.