Postmortem Organ Procurement for Transplantation

Excerpt

The 1-year survival rate of recipients of heart and liver transplants now exceeds that for recipients of postmortem donor kidney transplants according to recent reports (1-5). Very promising early results with pancreas and heart-lung transplants have also been reported (6, 7). These accomplishments are due largely to advances in the clinical treatment of allograft rejection. Kidney transplantation programs are well established; extrarenal transplantation programs for other organs will multiply rapidly in the months ahead to meet burgeoning needs. Liver transplantation was recently inaugurated at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cardiac transplantation will soon be initiated at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. In