In this paper I explore the human organ procurement system. Which is better for saving lives and limiting black market use, the present altruistic system of donations or a free and open sales market? I explain that there is a risk with maintaining the present system, the altruistic vision, and that people may die who might otherwise live if the sale of organs was permitted. But there is no guar...

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is characterized by the progressive deterioration of renal function that may compromise different tissues and organs. The major treatment indicated for patients with ESRD is kidney transplantation. However, the shortage of available organs, as well as the high rate of organ rejection, supports the need for new therapies. Thus, the implementation of tissue bioengin...

At the present time, increasing the use of living donors offers the best solution to the organ shortage problem. The clinical questions raised when the first living donor kidney transplant was performed, involving donor risk, informed consent, donor protection, and organ quality, have been largely answered. We strongly encourage a wider utilization of living donation and recommend that living d...

The transplantation of porcine organs to humans could in the future be a solution to the worldwide organ shortage, but is to date still highly experimental. Further research on the potential effects of crossing the species barrier is essential before clinical application is acceptable. However, many crucial questions on efficacy and safety will ultimately only be answered by well designed and c...

Tissue engineering (TE) is a relatively new, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary field that has seen intense development in recent years. One of the main motivations for TE research is the chronic shortage of organ donors and other limitations related to organ and tissue transplantation. The idea that tissues, and ultimately organs, can be "engineered" to be used in patients requiring trans...

Kidney transplantation has become a well-established treatment option for patients with end-stage renal failure. The persisting organ shortage remains a serious problem. Therefore, the acceptance criteria for organ donors have been extended leading to the usage of marginal kidney grafts. These marginal organs tolerate cold storage poorly resulting in increased preservation injury and higher rat...

Cardiac transplantation has become limited by a critical shortage of suitable organs from brain-dead donors. Reports describing the successful clinical transplantation of hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD) have recently emerged. Hearts from DCD donors suffer significant ischemic injury prior to organ procurement; therefore, the traditional approach to the transplantation of hearts fro...

O The main reasons for the lack of faculty to meet the demand for more nurses include the increased age of the current faculty and the declining number of years ieft to teach, expected increases in facuity retirements, less compensation for academic teaching than positions in clinical areas for master's-prepared nurses, and finaiiy, not enough master's and doctoral-prepared nurses to fiii the n...

Due to the worldwide shortage of organs for transplantation, there has been an increased use obtained after circulatory death alone. A protocol this procedure recently approved by a major transplant consortium. This development raises serious moral and ethical concerns. Two renowned theologians previous generation, Paul Ramsey Moshe Feinstein, wrote extensively on issues relating their work muc...

BACKGROUND Different pathological conditions such as congenital organ absence, severe organ injuries, end-stage organ failure and malignancy-related organ removal, have few effective therapeutic options a part from a whole organ transplant, that, however, often meets with a serious shortage of suitable donor organs. AIM The purpose of this paper consists in highlighting what the novel tissue ...