Re: My doc says that a study shows transplants done with lower meld score do worse

[Guest guest]

Chew on this for a while. With a MELD score of less than 15, a patient

is probably feeling pretty good, so the first year after transplant

with the subsequent healing and rehabilitation, there is significant

discomfort, compared to the way the patient FELT before the transplant.

But when you hear stories of patients who present with MELDs in the

20s, they probably FEEL pretty miserable. So transplant provides a

significant improvement of quality of life. The level of discomfort and

the numbers in bloodwork might indicate that both the patient with a 15

and the patient with the 23 are in IDENTICAL physical condition but the

23 reports that he/she FEELS much better than the 15.

Maybe this is what the doctor is referring to.

I've also read stories where in living donor transplant, the PSC

patient wakes up from surgery and reports actually feeling better than

immediately before surgery and the donor is the one who suffers. Who's

in more pain? Who's blood counts are worse. Neither. It's just that the

donor was healthy and feeling good before the surgery and the doctor

made a 20 inch incision and removed a lobe of liver and the PSC patient

was fatigued, septic, depressed, basically dying and the doctor puts in

a healthy chunk of liver which immediately starts removing toxins and

being a better contributor to the conversion of food to energy.

Does this help?

-

ERCP 9-02, PSC 12-02, Gallbladder 2-03, right tib/fib fx w/ rod

placement 1-05(this is for another support group), ERCP 4-05, UC 5-06

>

> than the people with high scores. He stated that transplants done

with

> scores less than 15 tend to do worse after the transplant than higher

> scores.

>

> Has anyone heard of such a study as I'd like to know more. This does

> not make sense to me as 1) lower score imply better health and 2)

where

> can get tranplanted with less than 15.

>

> In the meantime, I'll put in a call to my doctor to get more details

on

> this study.

>

> Mike in Houston (still alive)

>

[Guest guest]

As the article that Barb sent in highlights, people who are transplanted

at less that 15 MELD do worse than people with MELD <15 who aren't

transplanted (on average). They probably do as well or better than

people with a MELD over 15 who are transplanted (although the article

doesn't comment on this).

I guess this shows the importance of saying what you're comparing to

when you make a comparison.... sort of like the companies that say their

product is 20% better, but don't say what it's better than!

athan