Organ Transplantation Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Organ Transplantation, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery.

Organ transplantation--how much of the promise has been realized?

Lechler RI, Sykes M, Thomson AW, Turka LA

Guy's King's and St. Thomas's Medical School, King's College London, Hodgkin Building, Guy's Campus, London SE1 9RT, UK.

Since the introduction of organ transplantation into medical practice, progress and optimism have been abundant. Improvements in immunosuppressive drugs and ancillary care have led to outstanding short-term (1--3-year) patient and graft survival rates. This success is mitigated by several problems, including poor long-term (>5-year) graft survival rates, the need for continual immunosuppressive medication and the discrepancy between the demand for organs and the supply. Developing methods to induce transplant tolerance, as a means to improve graft outcomes and eliminate the requirement for immunosuppression, and expanding the pool of organs for transplantation are the major challenges of the field.

Published 6 June 2005 in Nat Med, 11(6): 605-13.
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