A new test called the AlloMap has been approved by the FDA to reduce the need for heart transplant recipients to undergo continuous biopsies to insure their organ is not being rejected by their bodies
The FDA has approved a new blood test which will greatly reduce the number of biopsies that heart transplant recipients need to undergo to make sure their bodies are not rejecting the new organ.
The test is called the AlloMap, and works by analyzing certain types of genetic information which is only found in white blood cells.
Often following a heart transplant, the body can take some time to “warm up” to its new organ, a fact that can result in numerous health complications.
“It is noninvasive,” said Dr. James Yee, chief medical officer of XDx, Inc., the California company that devised the test. “It requires only a simple blood sample.”
It is estimated that in the US back in 2006, the most recent year that data is available for, there were more than 2000 successful heart transplants conducted.
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