Transplantation Cancer Web alert

✍ Scribed by David R Greaves

• Book ID: 104358931
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 74 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0952-7915
• DOI: 10.1016/s0952-7915(98)80211-2

✦ Synopsis

Transplantation

Currently there are about 50,000 patients awaiting transplants in the USA but there are less than 5000 human donors per year and very few will be HLA matched. There are many good websites written for transplantation donors and recipients, some of which give an introduction to the immunology of transplantation rejection and mechanisms of tolerance.

The acute shortage of suitable organ donors has fuelled research into overcoming the immense immunological barriers that exist to the transplantation of animal tissues into human recipients, a process known as xenotransplantation. The ethical and, more recently, safety issues surrounding xenotransplantation have given rise to vigorous public debate and most viewpoints are represented on the Internet.