All articles tagged with #duke health
Duke University Health System will temporarily limit hospital visitors starting January 6, 2026, due to a rise in respiratory illnesses like influenza, RSV, and COVID-19, implementing measures such as limiting visitors to two per patient and requiring masks, with reviews planned based on illness trends.
Taylor Stephenson, a 26-year-old woman with cystic fibrosis, recently underwent her third double lung transplant in eight years at Duke Health after her second set of lungs began to fail. Following the successful surgery in January, she has made significant progress in her recovery, including walking 200 ft. just a day after waking up from the surgery. Stephenson hopes her story will inspire others with cystic fibrosis to consider a third transplant as a viable option and to not give up hope.
A new method for heart transplants called DCD (donation after circulatory death) could increase the number of donor hearts available for those in need of the life-saving procedure. Duke Health physicians led a study that showed the DCD approach is virtually the same as hearts procured through the current standard of care. Duke is now one of about 20 transplant centers in the country that provide DCD Heart Transplants and it could lead to more than 4,000 of the transplants this year.
Researchers at Duke Health have found that using hearts from donors who have died from circulatory death, rather than brain death, could increase the number of available organs for transplant by 30%. The hearts are reanimated in a machine before being transplanted, and the study found that survival rates six months later were about the same as those who received hearts from brain-dead donors. Last year, 4,111 heart transplants were performed in the US, but many people still die waiting for a transplant. The study's authors say that using hearts from circulatory death donors could help to address this issue.