28 February, 2014

Donor lungs from heavy smokers 'safe for transplantation'

The lungs of individuals who have a smoking history of 20 pack years - the equivalent to smoking one pack a day for 20 years - are usually deemed ineligible for donation. But new research suggests that transplanting lungs from heavy-smoking donors does not affect patient outcomes after surgery.

This is according to a study recently published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

The research team, including Dr. Anton Sabashnikov of the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital in the UK, analyzed data of 237 patients who underwent lung transplantation at Harefield Hospital between 2007 and 2012.

Characteristics of both patients and donors were assessed, as well as patient outcomes following transplantations.

The lung transplant patients were split into three groups:

§  Patients who were transplanted with lungs from smoking donors (less than 20 pack years)

§  Patients who were transplanted with lungs from heavy-smoking donors (more than 20 pack years), and

§  Patients who were transplanted with lungs from non-smoking donors.

The investigators say that all patients had comparable characteristics at the baseline of the study, and they excluded patients who were transplanted with lungs from donors with an unknown smoking history.

However, they note that heavy-smoking donors were much older than non-smoking and smoking donors.

The analysis revealed that patients transplanted with lungs from donors who smoked or were heavy smokers did not experience any severe negative outcomes following surgery, compared with patients transplanted with lungs from donors who did not smoke.

The United Network for Organ Sharing states that there were 1,763 lungs donated for transplantation in the US last year. But there continues to be a shortage relative to the number of lung transplantations required. According to Dr. Sabashnikov, these findings show that using donor lungs from heavy smokers could be a way of tackling this shortage.

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com

28.02.2014

Passive smoking 'increases risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and ectopic pregnancy'

Past research has linked passive smoking to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes and even hearing loss. Now, a new study suggests that exposure to secondhand smoke may increase a woman's risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and ectopic pregnancy.

The study findings were recently published online in the journal Tobacco Control - a journal of the BMJ.

In their background information of the study, the researchers note that smoking during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage and birth complications. But they point out that it is unclear as to whether passive smoking can have a similar impact. To find out, the investigators analyzed data from 80,762 women who were a part of the Women's Health Initiative Observation Study.

All women had been pregnant at least once and had gone through menopause.

Of these women, 5,082 (6.3%) were current smokers, 34,830 were former smokers (smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime) and 40,850 were never-smokers (had not smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime). The women who were never-smokers were split into groups dependent on the levels of secondhand smoke they were exposed to as a child, as an adult at home and as an adult at work.

Of all the women in the study, 26,307 (32.6%) reported having a miscarriage at least once, while 3,552 (4.4%) had a stillbirth and 2,033 (2.5%) experienced a tubal ectopic pregnancy.

Women who had ever smoked during their reproductive years were 44% more likely to have a stillborn child, 43% more likely to have an ectopic pregnancy and 16% more likely to miscarry, compared with never-smokers.

However, the researchers found that never-smokers who had been exposed to secondhand smoke also had a significantly higher risk of stillbirth, miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, compared with never-smokers who had not been exposed to secondhand smoke.

Furthermore, the investigators found that the longer these never-smokers had been exposed to secondhand smoke, the greater their risk.

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com

28.02.2014

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