Transplants

Transplants are surgical procedures that replace failing or damaged organs, tissues, or cells with healthy counterparts from a donor. The most common solid organ transplants are kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas, and intestine, while non-solid transplants include bone marrow or stem cells and corneas. Transplants may use organs from deceased donors or living donors, and can involve living-donor kidney or liver segments.

Donor selection and organ allocation involve evaluation of compatibility (blood type, tissue compatibility), organ size, medical urgency, and geographic proximity. Organ procurement organizations coordinate retrieval and distribution. Recipients undergo medical assessment, psychosocial evaluation, and informed consent, with waitlists used for organs with limited supply.

The transplantation procedure is followed by immunosuppressive therapy to prevent rejection, typically combining calcineurin inhibitors, antimetabolites, and steroids. Immunosuppression increases infection and cancer risk and requires long-term monitoring. Outcomes vary by organ but have substantially improved with advances in surgery, preservation, and immunology. Kidney transplants from living donors often offer better survival than dialysis; heart, liver, and lung transplants have extended survival and quality of life for many recipients.

Ethical and regulatory issues include donor consent, allocation fairness, organ trafficking prevention, and post-transplant quality of life considerations. Notable historical milestones include the first successful kidney transplant in 1954 and the first heart transplant in 1967.