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ROCHESTER, Minn. All too often, patients with high levels of antibodies face major challenges getting a transplant. These highly sensitized patients have a much higher risk of death while waiting for suitable organs they are less likely to reject. But there is new hope for highly sensitized patients in need of a combined heart and liver transplant, thanks to an innovative surgical approach at Mayo Clinic.
Traditionally, surgeons transplant the heart first, followed by the liver. But Mayo Clinic heart transplant team decided to reverse the order for highly sensitized patients in the hopes that the liver would absorb some of the patient s antibodies, removing them from circulation and lowering the risk of antibody-mediated rejection. The strategy worked, according to a study recently published in the