Dedicated bleed units: should they be advocated?
This study has shown a consistently low rebleeding and mortality rate in patients with UGIH in a dedicated bleed unit. However there are limitations to the degree of improvements which can be demonstrated due to factors such as age and comorbidity.
Terminal sialic acid on human erythrocytes is a target recognized by porcine Kupffer cells, suggesting a role for a sialic-acid receptor in innate cellular recognition of xenogeneic epitopes. Inasmuch as this work reveals a carbohydrate-recognition mechanism for cellular rejection, we shed light on a potential new boundary that will need to be overcome within xenotransplantation.