Bladder Tidings

Scott LaFee on Jul 30, 2025

In May, surgeons at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles, collaborated to perform the world's first human bladder transplant. Currently, when a bladder fails or needs to be removed, doctors create a "neobladder" using a portion of the patient's intestine, or they reroute urine to drain into a bag attached outside the body.

The 41-year-old recipient of a donor bladder also received a new kidney. Both of the patient's original kidneys and bladder had been destroyed by cancer. Doctors report the new kidney immediately made a lot of urine, and there was no need for dialysis. The patient was discharged after about a week and was able to urinate with the new bladder.

They will now monitor how well the bladder works long term.

Body of Knowledge

The thumb is critical to human hand function and dexterity, and there is a region of the brain called the primary motor cortex that is dedicated solely to movement of the thumb. Other digits also have corresponding representations in the brain, but they are all part of a larger cortical region.

Get Me That, Stat!

New data says 525,000 more American adults died in 2023 than one might have projected if improving mortality trends from before 2010 had continued. Mortality trends in the U.S. have flattened and declined, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid drug overdoses and other such factors. More than 90% of the excess deaths were among people without a college degree.

Doc Talk

Vitreous humor: The clear, gel-like substance that fills the space behind the lens of the eye and supports the shape of the rear portion of the eye. A vitrectomy is a microsurgical procedure in which some vitreous humor is removed and replaced with sterile saline or another fluid.

Phobia of the Week

Doraphobia: Fear of animal skins, but not necessarily when a living animal is still wearing it. Of course, confronting a live tiger wearing its own skin is a reasonable fear.

Best Medicine

Diarrhea is hereditary. It runs in your genes.

Observation

"A man is as old as his arteries." -- Physician Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), sometimes known as "the English Hippocrates" for his scholarly works

Medical History

This week in 1927, the first iron lung (electric respirator) was installed at Bellevue Hospital in New York City to address the polio epidemic. It was developed at Harvard University by Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw using two vacuum cleaners. The iron lung is a negative pressure machine that surrounds the patient's body except for the head. It alternates a negative atmospheric pressure with the ambient one, resulting in rhythmic expansion of the chest cage (and thus inhalation) in response to the negative extra thoracic pressure. During periods of ambient extrathoracic pressure, the lungs deflate.

Modern respiratory equipment has rendered the device -- not to mention the polio vaccine -- obsolete (not to mention the polio vaccine). Only a single person in the U.S. is believed to still use an iron lung.

Self-Exam

Q: In humans, the highest vertebra that supports the skull is known as the:

A) Atlas

B) Medulla

C) Sacrum

D) Coccyx

A: A) Atlas. The atlas permits the nodding motion. The next highest vertebra -- the axis -- allows for side-to-side movement of the skull.

Last Words

"I am dying. Please ... bring me a toothpick." -- French symbolist writer Alfred Jarry (1873-1907). Jarry is often cited as a forerunner to the Dada, surrealist and futurist movements in the early 20th century, as well as the theater of the absurd in the mid-20th century. In failing health, Jarry had been on a liquid diet, so his request is often viewed as intentionally ironic.

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To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.