Health Highlights: Feb. 2, 2009
Feb. 3 -- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
Donor's Kidney Removed Through Vagina
A kidney from a female donor was removed through her vagina by surgeons at Johns Hopkins University, the Associated Press reported. It's believed to be a world-first in kidney transplantation.
This technique meant the 48-year-old donor didn't require an abdominal incision, which normally leaves a 5- to 6-inch scar. The kidney was given to the woman's niece and both patients are doing well, hospital officials said.
They said this type of transvaginal kidney removal has been done before to remove cancerous or other nonfunctioning kidneys, but has never been used for healthy kidney donation, the AP reported.
The Jan. 29 operation left the donor with three pea-sized scars on her abdomen. The surgeons said they're hopeful this kind of procedure will persuade more people to become organ donors.
-----
Human-Animal Embryos Won't Produce Stem Cells: Study
Placing human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs in order to make hybrid cloned embryos to produce stem cells for research doesn't work because the animal eggs don't reprogram human DNA in the correct way to generate stem cells, U.S. researchers say.
"Instead of turning on the right genes, it turns out the animal eggs actually turn them off," senior study author Dr. Robert Lanza, of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., told the Associated Press.
The findings were published online Monday in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells.
Scientists would like to find a way to use animal eggs because it's difficult to get human eggs for research. While some scientists have managed to create human-animal hybrid embryos, there's no widely accepted report of harvesting stem cells from them, the AP said.
The U.S. researchers' conclusions were disputed by a British scientist who has government permission to attempt to create hybrid embryos.
"The idea that this is the nail in the coffin for hybrids is grossly overstated," said Stephen Minger of King's College, London, the AP reported.
