Educational Needs of the Adolescent Transplant Recipient: A Developmental Approach to Understanding Transplant.

Background: As pediatric transplant patients reach adolescence, care teams must prepare them for an eventual transition to adult-oriented care. Care teams must provide patients with the necessary knowledge and skills to manage their medical needs independently, but the level of learning required to successfully self-manage a transplant is substantial. Furthermore, adolescence is also a dynamic developmental period that includes significant cognitive development and changes in social motivations.

Psychosocial outcomes of parents in pediatric haploidentical transplant: parental hematopoietic cell donation as a double-edged sword.

Parents are increasingly used as donors for their child's haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplant, creating a dual role for parents that may increase the stress of caring for their ill child. Empiric research on the psychological adjustment of parental donors is lacking. We conducted a retrospective survey of parents (n = 136) whose child underwent transplant with a parental donor or a matched-unrelated donor, including both donor and nondonors, and both parents of survivors and bereaved.

"Giving the gift of life twice": Understanding the lived experiences of parent donors and nondonors in pediatric haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Background: The use of parental donors in pediatric haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation is increasing, but research on the psychosocial impact of parental donation is currently limited.

Objectives: As part of a larger study, we conducted a retrospective, qualitative analysis to explore parental perceptions of the donation process and the impact of being a donor (or nondonor) on parents' adjustment and coping with their child's transplant experience.

Methods: Parents/caregivers of children who underwent transplantation with a parental donor or a matched unrelated donor (N = 136) participated in interviews and completed an open-ended questionnaire.

IL-15: a novel prosurvival signaling pathway in cardiomyocytes.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Western countries. A major limitation of current treatments is the inability to efficiently repair or replace dead myocardium. Recently, stem cell-based therapies have been explored as an avenue to circumvent current therapeutic limitations.