T f i r s t success fu l human liver transplantation (LT) in the world was reported by Sir Thomas Starzl in 1967. 1 In the following years, the results of liver transplantation were poor. Complex surgical procedure and nonselective immunosuppression made patients highly vulnerable to infections and the physicians had a daunting task of balancing this with the risk of rejection. With introductio...

Heart transplantation is an accepted therapeutic modality for end-stage congenital heart disease for both biventricular and univentricular anomalies. Many transplant centers have pushed the limits of transplantation to include patients with high pulmonary vascular resistance, high panel reactive antibodies, positive cross-matches, and ABO-incompatibility. Excellent results have been possible, p...

This article provides an overview of the ethical issues associated with penile transplantation, a form of composite tissue allografting. There is only one reported case of human penile transplantation, and, as such, this technique is considered to be experimental. The ethical issues at stake involve both the graft donor and the graft recipient. With regard to the recipient, there are significan...

Robotic surgery has enabled surgeons to offer more patients a minimally invasive surgical option in the management of their complex diseases. While renal transplantation is associated with significant improvements in quantity and quality of life for most end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients, it is also not devoid of its surgical risks and potential morbidities. Robotic-assisted kidney transp...

Advances in nephrology and pediatric urology have increased the number of children who survive renal disease and become candidates for renal transplantation. Ten years of experience in pediatric renal transplantation are reviewed to determine the rates of patient morbidity and graft survival. Of the 450 renal transplantations performed in Imam Reza Hospital (1989- 1999), fifty-one were don...

On the cover: Recent events have sharpened thinking and discourse related to racially based inequities that permeate not only society but also medicine and, in turn, transplantation. In this issue, Reese colleagues (page 958) focus our attention on unequal access preemptive kidney transplantation, or transplantation prior dialysis initiation, a highly advantageous practice yields both survival ...