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Weight Loss Surgery Could Change the Future for Organ Transplant Patients

(PRLEAP.COM) (Reno, NV) - Every day is a battle against time for 56 year old Carson City resident Michael Downey. Diagnosed with severe lung disease, Downey desperately needs a double lung transplant in order to continue his life. Unfortunately, there is one hurdle standing in the way of Downey receiving his much needed new lungs — he needs to lose 50 pounds, quickly.

What many people may not know is that in order for patients to qualify for a transplant, they must be at a healthy weight and Downey is 50 pounds over that. With time working against him, Downey’s wife, Joni, suggested that he consider weight loss surgery. Joni is a successful gastric bypass patient and knew that it could help her husband meet his weight loss goals.

Downey turned to Dr. Kent Sasse with Western Bariatric Institute in Reno to help him lose the weight. Dr. Sasse, an experienced weight loss surgeon, knew that Downey’s would be a difficult and high risk case. Due to Downey’s current health, he has an increased risk of pneumonia and complications from anesthesia both during and after surgery. After discussing potential problems though, Downey felt that it was worth the risk to move forward with gastric banding surgery (also commonly called the Lap-Band(r)) because it would give him an opportunity to hopefully live a longer and healthier life.

Undergoing weight loss surgery prior to organ transplantation is a new approach and Dr. Sasse has been collaborating with Downey’s pulmonologist, Dr. Jeffrey Golden, with the University of California, San Francisco Lung Transplant program, to determine the appropriate steps for his care. Downey was referred to the UCSF transplant program by Dr. Guy Foster, a pulmonologist from Carson City.

“Michael’s case could really make a difference in the future for other transplant patients. Many people are told that they are not eligible for transplant surgery due to their weight. If we can help people to get to a healthy weight, which in turn makes them eligible for surgery, it could be a great breakthrough,” stated Dr. Sasse.

Downey is scheduled for gastric banding surgery on Wednesday, October 3rd at Renown Regional Medical Center with Dr. Sasse. “I am definitely ready to have this surgery and be one step closer to my lung transplant,” stated Downey.

After weight loss surgery, Downey will continue to prepare for the double lung transplant that he hopes to have in the near future. Once he has lost the excess weight, Downey will immediately be placed on the transplant list and then will wait for an appropriate donor. In the meantime, Downey and Joni are doing everything they can to prepare. “Our Jeep is packed and we are ready to go when the call comes in,” they said. That call could come 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months or longer after being added to the registry but they will be ready when it happens.

In 2005, there were 27,527 organ transplants done in the United States. Once a patient has been determined eligible for a transplant, they are added to a national registry and organs are matched to recipients using several methods including blood type and the size of the organ needed.

When asked what he would say to others in a similar situation, Downey said, “Keep an open mind and seek out all possibilities. Had it not been for me suggesting the bariatric surgery for a rapid weight loss, I would have had no other option but to do a weight loss program the old conventional way and exercise is just not an option when you have severe lung disease.”

Downey has a phD in Administration and Management and until recently was employed by Western Nevada College. He was the past state commander for the State of Nevada for Veterans of Foreign Wars and is also a Shrine Clown.

To schedule interviews with Michael Downey, Dr. Kent Sasse with Western Bariatric Institute, or Dr. Jeffrey Golden with the University of California, San Francisco Lung Transplant program, please contact Kim Brown at (775) 326-9171.

July 19, 2007

Field(s) of Research: Prevention Research

PHILADELPHIA - An obese person is more likely than a lean person to develop multiple myeloma, according to researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health. Their findings indicate that Body Mass Index (BMI) - a statistical measure that scales weight to height - provides an indicator for one’s risk of developing multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells that produce antibodies. Multiple myeloma currently affects more than 50,000 people in the U.S., and the five-year survival rates of the cancer are below 40 percent.

The study, published in the July issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, takes its data from over 100,000 participants in the on-going Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, two similar large-scale studies. The study findings were similar to those from previously published studies that included smaller numbers of multiple myeloma patients, and/or were based on a one-time recording of height and weight.

“I find the results of these studies encouraging, since they show consistent results about the first risk factor for multiple myeloma that people can actually modify,” said the study’s lead author Brenda M. Birmann, Sc.D., a researcher in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Treatment options for this disease are improving, but it is also important to identify risk factors that could be modified. We would like to learn how to prevent its occurrence.”

The Brigham and Women’s Hospital-based Nurses’ Health Study has followed the health of female registered nurses since 1976, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, based at Harvard School of Public Health, has followed males from several health professions since 1986. These studies recorded height, weight and physical activity for each person enrolled, as well as diet, medications, smoking habits and other health behaviors, and has updated that information every two to four years. Of the 136,623 participants who qualified for their study protocol, Birmann and her colleagues confirmed 215 cases of multiple myeloma.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is computed by dividing a person’s weight by the square of their height. A BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered optimal, a BMI of 25-29 is considered overweight, and a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese.

The association between BMI and multiple myeloma was strongest among men with a BMI of 30 or more. When compared with leaner men (those with a BMI below 22), obese men, the researchers said, were over twice as likely to develop multiple myeloma. The effect was less pronounced among overweight or obese women, yet those women also had an increased risk.

The study also looked at whether regular exercise is related to risk of multiple myeloma. There was not a clear effect of exercise on risk, although the results among women suggested that those who exercise more might have a lower risk. “We cannot say with certainty that exercise reduces the risk of multiple myeloma, but there is ample evidence that regular exercise offers many other health benefits,” Birmann said.

The study findings do show, however, that the effect of BMI on risk of multiple myeloma is separate from any possible effect of physical activity.

According to Birmann, previous research has identified possible biological links between obesity and multiple myeloma. For example, adipocytes, cells found in fat tissue, produce a cell signal, called interleukin-6 (IL-6), which promotes the immune system’s inflammation response. In obese people, this can cause an overproduction of IL-6, which in turn creates a cellular environment that sustains multiple myeloma. “The IL-6 chemical pathway is one possible way obesity could influence the risk of developing diseases like cancer or cardiovascular disease, but the answer might also lie in other relationships between obesity and cancer,” Birmann said.

Further research, she said, will uncover more about the relationships between obesity and cancers such as multiple myeloma. The researchers believe their findings may lead to examination in greater detail of the BMI/multiple myeloma link, including the role of IL-6 and other chemical signals, energy metabolism, and other risk factors such as weight change or weight cycling.

This research was funded through grants from the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Specialized Program in Research Excellence in Multiple Myeloma, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

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The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, AACR is the world’s oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes nearly 26,000 basic, translational, and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 70 other countries. AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. AACR publishes five major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Its most recent publication, CR, is a magazine for cancer survivors, patient advocates, their families, physicians, and scientists. It provides a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship, and advocacy.

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