Patient Stories

Kristen Jagodowski

Kristen is a double lung transplant recipient and AlloSure^® Lung patient.

After a past biopsy caused her lung to collapse and led to her being hospitalized, Kristen and her doctors are excited to be able to keep an eye on the health of her transplanted lungs with a simple blood draw. Now, thanks to AlloSure Lung, Kristen can spend less time in the hospital and more time with her family doing what matters.

Kristen is a double lung transplant recipient and AlloSure® Lung patient. After a past biopsy caused her lung to collapse and led to her being hospitalized, Kristen and her doctors are excited to be able to keep an eye on the health of her transplanted lungs with a simple blood draw. Now, thanks to AlloSure Lung, Kristen can spend less time in the hospital and more time with her family doing what matters.

Joyanne Ferrara

Joyanne is a kidney transplant and AlloSure^{^®} patient.

Her antibody levels stayed elevated after the transplant, so she started IVIG treatment. After not responding to the treatment and a host of side effects, she asked her doctors to try the AlloSure test.

And that’s changed what the future looks like with her new kidney.

My name is Joyanne Ferrara, and I had a kidney transplant. My husband was my donor. When we had the transplant everything went really well, really smooth. But on the onset after the transplant, I found out that I had antibodies. They were very concerned that I could have a potential rejection issue. As time went on my bloodwork stayed really stellar, but the antibodies continue to escalate, and they had given me some IVIGs, which I didn’t respond to, and really caused me a lot of side effects. So I asked them, can you take me off of these IVIGs, and let me do the test with CareDx to see if I really need to be concerned that these antibodies are effecting my kidney. Kidney biopsies are invasive. The AlloSure test completely changed for me what the future has really been like with this kidney transplant. It was just such a praise report for me.

Ava Kaufmann

Ten years ago, Ava got a new heart and the inspiration to start Ava’s Heart Foundation—a non-profit that helps recipients and families with their transplant journey. She’s also an AlloMap^{^®} patient.

After mentoring a few teens and realizing what they went through after a transplant, her foundation launched a scholarship program.

Now Hillary is going to nursing school.

My name is Ava Kauffman, and 10 years ago, I had a rare autoimmune disease that went misdiagnosed for three months, I was on a VAD and a pump and an ECHMO machine and I was given days to live. I got a heart in 10 days on my real birthday. I’m so grateful to CareDx for the AlloMap tests and for them sponsoring the work that I’m doing with Ava’s heart. I came up with an idea that I wanted to start a scholarship program for transplant teens, because I was mentoring a few. My name is Hillary Suarez and I’m 19 years old. I met Ava because of a project I was doing at school, just knowing that she was able to give me the scholarship. I’m finally going to be able to go back to school and just continue to do what I have to do so I can get to where I want to be. When I first met her, I was just blown away by how mature she was. And, you know, she told me her dreams about wanting to be a nurse and to be involved. And I thought, you know what? We need to start expanding what we’re doing at Ava’s heart as well She’s helped my my parents. OK. So I just want to say thank you. She’s did a lot for me and I really appreciate it for that. I just want to give a special thank you to CareDx, because without sponsors like CareDx, who has been there with us from the beginning, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing. And Hillary is a perfect example of that.

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