Latest news with #TowanaLooney
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Yahoo
The Black Cali Girl Who Went Missing For a Year was Finally Found But The Truth Will Shock You, Indiana Man's Night Goes Left After His ‘Date' Allegedly Reveals Her True Motive, Why Black Texas Judge Overseeing the Track Meet Stabbing Case is Getting Rocked With Racism And More News
A young Indiana father never returned home from his date earlier this year. Police say the woman he treated to a night out had other plans that resulted in a serious tragedy. However, there's even another twist to this incident the cops didn't see coming. - Kalyn Womack Read More Back in May 2024, the family of a 14-year-old Sacramento girl was in a panic after her sudden disappearance. Authorities confirmed the girl has been found and safe. However, preliminary investigation findings reveal disturbing information regarding her vanishing. - Kalyn Womack Read More A typical day at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Dallas turned into a nightmare after gunfire sent a mass of students fleeing up and down the hallways. New police documents detail what happened moments before the event. It's even more shocking than you think… - Kalyn Womack Read More Life for Towana Looney hasn't been easy. After giving her mother one of her kidneys in 1999, the Alabama woman thought the routine procedure would give her mother a new lease on life and herself peace of mind. But instead, Looney would experience an onslaught of her own health problems putting her life in danger. - Phenix S Halley Read More The Texas judge who reduced the bail amount for the teen accused of stabbing another teen at a track meet was met with an overwhelming response to her ruling. No, the response was not positive but forced the judge to take her own safety precautions. - Kalyn Womack Read More A former Southern University football player and NFL prospect is in major trouble following the post of a horrifying video. His ex-girlfriend appeared to finally be ready to air out her grievances against the athlete. - Kalyn Womack Read More Picture this: Stephen A. Smith, fresh off another heated 'First Take' conversation loaded with viral soundbites and meme-worthy takes, looks directly into the camera and blurts, 'I have no choice but to run for president.' It is the kind of move literally nobody asked for, and Black Twitter is letting him know just that. - B. Kadijat Towolawi Read More Disgraced rapper-producer Sean 'Diddy' Combs is perhaps the most famous resident of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. He's been held at MDC since September 2024, while he awaits his trial for racketeering and sex trafficking charges which is set to begin next month. - Angela Johnson Read More After the all-female Blue Origin spaceflight came back from launching beyond the sound barrier, a lot of people have been accusing the expedition of being a farce. A lot of people have even challenged the expedition asking, 'Did they even go to space for just 11 minutes?' - Kalyn Womack Read More Black social media was set ablaze after Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell, founder of Atlanta's 2819 Church, shared a sermon that has him going viral. And not in that good, inspiring viral to which most pastors aspire. - Towolawi Read More For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Ammon
13-04-2025
- Health
- Ammon
Doctors remove pig kidney from woman after 130 days
Ammon News - An Alabama woman who lived with a pig kidney for a record 130 days had the organ removed after her body began rejecting it and is back on dialysis, doctors announced Friday – a disappointment in the ongoing quest for animal-to-human transplants. Towana Looney is recovering well from the April 4 removal surgery at NYU Langone Health and has returned home to Gadsden, Alabama. In a statement, she thanked her doctors for 'the opportunity to be part of this incredible research.' 'Though the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learned from my 130 days with a pig kidney – and that this can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcoming kidney disease,' Looney added. Scientists are genetically altering pigs so their organs are more humanlike to address a severe shortage of transplantable human organs. More than 100,000 people are on the U.S. transplant list, most who need a kidney, and thousands die waiting. Before Looney's transplant only four other Americans had received experimental xenotransplants of gene-edited pig organs – two hearts and two kidneys that lasted no longer than two months. Those recipients, who were severely ill before the surgery, died. AP
South China Morning Post
11-04-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Pig kidney removed from US woman after record-setting 4 months
Doctors have had to remove the pig kidney implanted in an American woman after her body rejected it, but her four months living with the animal's organ set a record, the hospital that performed the operation said Friday. Advertisement Towana Looney, a woman in her fifties from the southern state of Alabama, had received the genetically modified pig kidney on November 25 in New York. The highly experimental procedure had fuelled optimism that animal kidneys might prove a usable source amid a chronic shortage of available human kidneys. Her body's eventual rejection of the transplant showed that the reliable use of animal organs remains a distant goal, but doctors took some hope since the pig kidney did its blood-filtering work for 130 days before the body began rejecting it. A handful of patients had previously received pig kidneys, but none had survived more than two months. Advertisement Doctors said Looney, who is again receiving dialysis treatment, remains a candidate to receive a human kidney if one becomes available.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pig kidney removed from US transplant patient, but she set record
Doctors have had to remove the pig kidney implanted in an American woman after her body rejected it, but her four months living with the animal's organ set a record, the hospital that performed the operation said Friday. Towana Looney, a woman in her fifties from the southern state of Alabama, had received the genetically modified pig kidney on November 25 in New York. The highly experimental procedure had fueled optimism that animal kidneys might prove a usable source amid a chronic shortage of available human kidneys. Her body's eventual rejection of the transplant showed that the reliable use of animal organs remains a distant goal, but doctors took some hope since the pig kidney did its blood-filtering work for 130 days before the body began rejecting it. A handful of patients had previously received pig kidneys, but none had survived more than two months. Doctors said Looney, who is again receiving dialysis treatment, remains a candidate to receive a human kidney if one becomes available. In a statement released by NYU Langone Hospital in New York, Looney expressed her gratitude for the care and support of her medical team there. "For the first time since 2016, I enjoyed time with friends and family without planning around dialysis treatments," she said. "Though the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learned from my 130 days with a pig kidney —- and that this can help and inspire many others." In 1999, Looney had donated a kidney to her mother. After a pregnancy-related complication damaged her remaining kidney, she spent eight years on dialysis. Doctors were unable to find a compatible human donor, and Looney -- her health deteriorating -- was ultimately cleared to receive a genetically modified pig kidney. Though early results were encouraging, "in early April, she had a reduction in renal function due to acute rejection," said Robert Montgomery, the chair of surgery and director of the hospital's transplant institute. He added: "What triggered the rejection episode after a long period of stability is being actively investigated, but it followed a lowering of her immunosuppression regimen to treat an infection unrelated to the pig kidney." The treatment seeks to inhibit the body's immune system to prevent it from attacking the implanted organ, but it also weakens the body's ability to fight off external infections. The decision to remove the pig kidney was taken jointly by Looney and her doctors, in order to preserve "future possibilities for transplantation." Doctors said she recovered rapidly from the April 4 operation, was discharged from the hospital on the fifth day after surgery, and "is back home in Alabama doing well." cha/vla/bbk/mlm
USA Today
11-04-2025
- Health
- USA Today
She set the record for living longest with a pig kidney. Then it failed.
She set the record for living longest with a pig kidney. Then it failed. A pig kidney kept an Alabama woman alive for five months - longer than anyone ever before. Doctors aren't sure yet why it suddenly stopped. Show Caption Hide Caption Pig kidney transplant not linked to man's death, doctors say Doctors say they don't believe the man who received the world's first pig kidney transplant died because of the transplanted organ. Towana Looney's transplanted pig kidney was removed after 130 days due to rejection. This was the longest a human had survived with a pig kidney transplant. She has returned to dialysis and awaits future transplant possibilities. Towana Looney lived for more than four months with a kidney from a pig instead of her own damaged ones. But in early April, her body ‒ which had tolerated the kidney longer than any human had ever survived with an animal organ ‒ suddenly rejected it. Doctors aren't yet sure why, but it happened after they reduced the medication Looney, from Gadsden, Alabama, was taking to tamp down her immune response to the pig kidney. On April 4, 130 days after her transplant, the kidney was removed, according to a news release from NYU-Langone, which handled the transplant. Looney recovered quickly and was discharged home five days after the procedure. 'I'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity to be part of this incredible research," Looney said in the statement released by the hospital. "Though the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learned from my 130 days with a pig kidney ‒ and that this can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcome kidney disease." She will now be kept alive with three-times-a-week dialysis treatments, as she had been for nine years before the transplant. Looney said she had appreciated the break. "For the first time since 2016, I enjoyed time with friends and family without planning around dialysis treatments." Looney's transplant was part of a larger effort to provide genetically engineered pig organs to help solve the human organ shortage. A handful of other patients have received pig kidneys and hearts. Only the most recent of the transplants made public remains alive. More than a 100,000 Americans are currently waiting on organ transplant lists, hoping for a living person to donate one of their kidneys or for someone to die with healthy enough organs and a willingness to donate. Others never make the lists at all, or, like Looney, wait for years for a match that makes medical sense. Looney, 53, had turned to an animal organ after years of not being able to match with any human donors. She was a genetically difficult match, doctors said, and was made more difficult after blood transfusions she received during a difficult pregnancy led her to develop antibodies to many human organs. The pigs available for transplant are gene-edited to make them less likely to be immediately recognized and rejected by the human immune system, and in some cases, to reduce the risk of blood clots. Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who led Looney's treatment, said he's not yet sure why the kidney failed but decided that removal was the safest course of action. "This preserves future possibilities for transplantation for her as knowledge and innovations progress," he said in the hospital statement. In a separate statement, United Therapeutics, the company that genetically engineers pigs for so-called xenotransplantation, said the kidney seems to have worked well until Looney's immune medication was reduced. "One of the biggest challenges for transplant recipients – human-to-human or pig-to-human – is theprevention and management of infections while simultaneously balancing the level of immunosuppressionmedications required to prevent rejection, especially in the first months after surgery," the company wrote. "Mrs. Looney's bravery has enabled major advancements in the field of xenotransplantation and adds to thefoundational insights made possible by the contributions of other patients." People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals finds the whole idea of using pig organs unethical. Instead, more people should become organ donors, PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo, said in a statement. "Humans need organs and pigs need theirs, too. Stealing them from one animal to put them into another is a long, cruel way around a far kinder and easier solution: Cleaning up the organ procurement system, which wastes as many as 28,000 organs annually, and enacting presumed consent laws," she wrote. "This would save more lives—including the animals'."
