Vaccine fights heart transplant infection

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 20

Vaccine fights heart transplant infection

A vaccine to fight infection of patients after heart transplants and other major operations should be available world-wide next year, as a result of a discovery by two British medical scientists. Patients having heart transplants, open heart surgery, or operations on the lower part of the body, are susceptible to infection from Gram negative bacilli or “bowel bug.”. Until now, doctors have prescribed antibiotics after an operation, to fight the infection, which is one of the commonest in hospitals. Dr Kate Gould and Dr Roger Freeman, microbiologists at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, in

north-east England, found that a small number of patients produce their own antibodies to the “bowel bug” naturally, and they have spent the last six months working in their spare time to develop a vaccine to make all patients produce their own antibodies. The vaccine will be given while patients are still on the waiting list for an operation. The pre-operation vaccine will be of particular benefit to heart transplant patients. Fighting infection after operations is more difficult for them, because of their general battle against rejection of the new heart.

After skious operations patients

often develop a fever. Until now doctors have not been able to tell if the fever was a post-operation fever or due to an infection. Vaccinated patients producing their own antibodies should not develop a post-operation fever. The vaccine will be made from the bacteria E. coli J 5.

“We hope to use it in a further study on heart surgery patients at the Freeman Hospital,” said Dr Gould. “We are fortunate in having a large cardiothoracic unit, so the study should take no longer than six months. We hope that the vaccine will be made commercially and at low cost by next year.” — London Presss Service.