OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT STATUS OF SOLID ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION

Solid organ transplantation is a burgeoning field of medicine and biomedical science that has fulfilled and, perhaps, exceeded its envisaged potential to prolong and enhance the lives of individuals with irreversible organ failure. Although the history of transplantation is marked by individual bold innovations and discoveries, the consolidation of reproducible success and the persistent optimism for the future of this field now stem from collaboration, information sharing, and debate among the growing community of transplant-related professionals. Furthermore, as the process of overcoming barriers to successful treatment of organ failure has evolved worldwide, the field of solid organ transplantation has come to represent a unique nodal point for disciplines as diverse as medicine and surgery, immunology, pharmacology, biomedical industry, bioethics, sociology, jurisprudence, and politics. The purposes of this chapter are to encapsulate recent numerical trends in organ transplant practice worldwide, to highlight the complex medical and social drivers that underlie such trends, and to briefly discuss emerging factors that may shape its future.

RECENT TRENDS IN SOLID ORGAN TRANSPLANT NUMBERS AND SURVIVAL RATES

Successful human transplantation protocols have been established for a range of individual solid organs and organ combinations over the past five decades. The single-organ grafts that are currently carried out routinely are kidney, pancreas, liver, small intestine, heart, and lung. Combined kidney/pancreas and heart/lung transplants have also emerged as established therapies for specific causes of double-organ failure.