{"id":232148,"date":"2026-02-26T09:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/surprising-culprit-leads-to-chronic-rejection-of-transplanted-lungs-and-hearts"},"modified":"2026-02-26T09:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:15:18","slug":"surprising-culprit-leads-to-chronic-rejection-of-transplanted-lungs-and-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/surprising-culprit-leads-to-chronic-rejection-of-transplanted-lungs-and-hearts","title":{"rendered":"Surprising culprit leads to chronic rejection of transplanted lungs and hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/surprising-culprit-leads-to-chronic-rejection-of-transplanted-lungs-and-hearts.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite advances in the field of organ transplantation, long-term organ rejection that can become apparent a decade or more after a heart or lung transplant remains a common problem for patients. This chronic organ failure has long been attributed exclusively to the recipient\u2019s immune system attacking the foreign organ over time.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that chronic organ rejection may instead be triggered by the disruption of lymphatic vessels\u2014an important drainage system throughout the body\u2014from the donor organ rather than an attack by the patient\u2019s immune system.<\/p>\n<p>The study is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/scitranslmed.adu0358\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Science Translational Medicine<\/i>. It includes analyses of transplanted human organs with chronic rejection and mouse models of lung and heart transplantation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite advances in the field of organ transplantation, long-term organ rejection that can become apparent a decade or more after a heart or lung transplant remains a common problem for patients. This chronic organ failure has long been attributed exclusively to the recipient\u2019s immune system attacking the foreign organ over time. Now, a study led [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}