Woman Develops Peanut Allergy After Lung Transplant

An anonymous reader writes "A woman in need of a lung transplant got her new lungs from someone with a peanut allergy who died of anaphylactic shock. Seven months after the surgery, the woman was at an organ transplant support group when she ate a peanut butter cookie and had a violent allergic reaction. So how had the woman's new lungs brought along a peanut allergy? A blog post dives into the medical details and explains that immune cells in the donated lungs couldn't have lived in the new body for long enough to cause the reaction... however, if they encountered an allergen (i.e. something peanuty) shortly after being transplanted, they could have trained the woman's native immune cells to respond."

Comments

Idle?

[emkyooess]

I wouldn't call this an "idle" article. It's more of a real article that some of them lately.

Transplant drugs?

[vlm]

I believe if you get a lung transplant you get to take immunosuppresive drugs for life. So, she's on a heavy diet of drugs that deeply mess with her immune system, her immune system malfunctions, therefore it must be some mystical connection to a dead person.

If you hear hooves, think horse not zebra.

Re:Transplant drugs?

[UnknowingFool]

It was my understanding that allergies are an over-reaction of the immune system. People without allergies have immune systems that have minimal responses. I would have thought that the transplant drugs would function the same as allergy medication in that they dampen the response.