Organ transplantation

One day, cardiac patients may enjoy a new lease on life with pig hearts beating in their chests, said researchers reporting a major advance on April 5 in cross-species organ transplantation.

Given the dire shortage of organ donors, the use of animal hearts, lungs or livers to save human lives has long been a holy grail of medical science.   

Greece’s government body that manages the refugee crisis has been mobilized after it emerged that the family of a 7-year-old Syrian boy who is hospitalized in Germany and urgently needs a bone marrow transplant may be among the thousands of stranded refugees and migrants in Greece.

Turkish doctors at Antalya's Akdeniz University performed the country's third double arm transplant in an 11-hour operation on Feb. 2, with initial reports indicating the recipient is in good medical condition. 

The head of the Turkish Kidney Foundation has sent a letter to Turkey's health minister demanding him to take action against a recent court ruling which has prompted fears of increased organ trade in the country. 

Two Turkish courts have annulled procedures of an organ transplant commission prohibiting organ donation to third parties, a move that may encourage illegal organ trade according to an organ donation foundation.

Turkey ranks the world's first for the number of hair transplant operations carried out, amid rapidly rising demand from Arab citizens from Gulf countries.

A senior official from the Health Ministry, Ömer Tontu?, said over 200 hair transplant operations were carried out daily in Turkey, mainly on foreign patients. 

Greek researcher Eleni Antoniadou has was picked by Forbes in third place in the list of top global health professional under the age of 30.

The text accompanying Antoniadou’s photo notes that Eleni is chasing the “Holy Grail” of bio-technology, namely, the creation of mammalian organs in the lab, a process that would eventually lead to transplants for patients whenever necessary.

The world took notice of the heart-wrenching images of Aylan Kurdi’s little body swept up like debris on a Turkish beach, however the real tragedy for the region’s children cannot be encaptured in one picture alone. UN research last year documented 18,000 cases were children from Syria were slaughtered for the purposes of human organ transplants.

A Turkish man, whose heart has stopped several times in the past four years, has cheated death one more time.

Cihat Çengelo?lu, a 27-year-old cameraman who has filmed Turkish dramas, fell down on the set one day. Doctors discovered he suffered from heart failure. Only 10 percent of his heart was working properly. It was four years ago.

An imprisoned man has endured two days of Kafkaesque adversity to attend the funeral of his father at an Alevi worshipping house in the western province of Bal?kesir. The procedural struggle occurred because cemevis are not officially recognized in Turkish law as places of worship.