Faculty Bibliography

More American doctors said they were reluctant to treat patients infected with the virus that causes AIDS and would choose not to practice in an area where AIDS is prevalent. Most doctors in the study said they recognized an ethical obligation to treat HIV-infected patients. But of 1,745 American doctors surveyed in 10 states, 23 percent said they would not care for AIDS patients if they had a choice. The figure compared with 14 percent of 542 Canadian doctors and 4 percent of 361 French doctors. About three-fourths of the American and Canadian doctors and about 40 percent of the French doctors in the study reported that they had been stuck by a needle contaminated with a patient's blood at least once. Several doctors in the United States have died from AIDS contracted from needle-stick injuries with HIV-contaminated blood and others are dying from the disease

The kind of tumor removed from Pope John Paul II's colon on Jul 15, 1992 is called a villous adenoma and is a kind of polyp that has a huge potential for becoming cancerous. The pope's tumor, however, was benign. The surgery performed on the pope is described

The world's first recipient of a baboon liver underwent a procedure on Jul 10, 1992 to determine how well his body and the new organ are adapting, and no sign of rejection of the organ was found

The doctors had been hesitant to do a liver biopsy on the man, who is the first in a series of four patients scheduled to receive baboon livers. But because of concern over a rejection reaction, which can be difficult to detect, they went ahead with the biopsy. They found no evidence of rejection in the small piece of tissue removed from the patient's liver

Transplant surgeon Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Pittsburgh, who led the team that gave a baboon liver to a 35-year-old man on Jun 28, 1992, is profiled. Despite having performed thousands of operations since the 1950's, he says he was terrified each time he picked up a scalpel and tormented by an intense dislike of surgery's brutal assault on the body

PITTSBURGH - Doctors have upgraded the condition of the first human to receive a transplanted baboon liver, and they say he continues to improve as well as any patient who has received a human liver. The liver transplant was necessary because hepatitis B had destroyed the man's liver. The disease probably would have damaged a transplanted human liver as well, but doctors think the baboon organ might not be as susceptible to the hepatitis B virus. Earlier in the week, doctors said the man had developed a mild case of hemolytic anemia, a condition that occurs in about 5 percent of human liver transplant recipients, [John Fung] said. Standard blood tests show that the condition has improved in the baboon liver recipient, Fung said

The man's new liver is functioning well, trying to restore the biochemical imbalances created by his own liver, which was destroyed by the hepatitis B virus. One measure, a test for bilirubin, a substance made in the liver, has shown steady improvement since the operation, declining to 10 from a high of 17, Dr. [John J. Fung] said. Normal is less than 2. Early Reaction Improved Earlier in the week, doctors said the man had developed a mild case of hemolytic anemia, a condition that occurs in about 5 percent of human liver recipients, Dr. Fung said. Standard blood tests show that the condition has improved in the baboon liver recipient, Dr. Fung said

Since 1905, surgeons have tried at least 33 times to transplant an animal organ into a human, but no attempts have succeeded longer than nine months, largely because the drugs the patients received were too weak to overcome the rejection phenomenon

''Clinically, he looks very well and his condition is stable,'' said Dr. John Fung, the surgeon who headed the team that gave the man a baboon liver in an 11-hour operation June 26. Earlier in the week, doctors said the man had developed a mild case of hemolytic anemia, a condition that occurs in about 5 percent of human liver transplant recipients, Fung said. Standard blood tests show that the condition has improved in the baboon liver recipient, Fung said. The team is continuing to monitor for such a possibility and Fung has expressed confidence that if there is one it could be controlled by adjusting two of the four drugs he is receiving to prevent rejection of the baboon liver

Doctors of the world's first recipient of a baboon liver said on Jul 1, 1992 that the patient has developed what could be a mild rejection reaction, but they expressed confidence that they could control it