Organ transplantation saves thousands of lives every year but the shortage of donors is a major limiting factor to increase transplantation rates. To allow more patients to be transplanted before they die on the wait-list an increase in the number of donors is necessary. Patients with devastating irreversible brain injury, if medically suitable, are potential deceased donors and strategies are ...

When faced with the grim landscape of morbidity and mortality attributable to the organ shortage, the medical community intuitively looks to research for solutions. Basic discoveries vetted in the literature, followed by rigorous testing in increasingly relevant animal models, and culminating in prospective, randomized trials that prove safety and efficacy delineate the classical pathway of med...

Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) constitute the single leading cause of death in the United States. According to the heart disease and stroke statistics released by American Heart Association in 2010, 1 out of every 2.9 deaths is due to cardiovascular disease. Even with early diagnosis and timely reperfusion of ischemic myocardium, up to 30% patients develop Left Ventricular (LV) remodeling and lo...

An increasing shortage of transplant donor organs currently results in an escalating number of preventable human deaths. Xenotransplantation. the use of animal organs for transplantation into humans, is now heralded as medicine's most viable answer to the urgent and insurmountable human organ scarcity. Although claimed to be a biomedical prerogative, xenotransplantation is a cultural phenomenon...

Since the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, the number of people receiving organs each year has increased [1]. Unfortunately, the number of donations has not kept up with the number of patients needing them, resulting in a severe shortage of organs [1]. This requires that we allocate organs as efficiently as possible. Currently in the U.S., organs are allocated at a local, regional, and na...

One of two articles related to the current organ shortage, this article advocates the need for legislation to recognize organs and tissues separated from the body as a distinct category of personal property. After addressing the legislative history of organ procurement and psychological barriers to donor consent, the article examines the importance of separating the lifetime rights of ownership...

It is imperative to develop organ manufacturing technologies based on the high organ failure mortality and serious donor shortage problems. As an emerging and promising technology, bioprinting has attracted more and more attention with its super precision, easy reproduction, fast manipulation and advantages in many hot research areas, such as tissue engineering, organ manufacturing, and drug sc...

Transplantation is an effective, life-prolonging treatment for organ failure. Demand has steadily increased over the past decade, creating a shortage in the supply of organs. In addition, the number of deceased organ donors has reached a plateau. Living-donor transplantation is increasingly an option, influenced by favourable clinical outcomes and increased waiting times at most transplant cent...

Over the past 15 years, the shortage of organs for transplantation has worsened. This has forced clinicians to review alternative approaches to organ procurement. These new approaches, however, may have serious implications both for patients and for society as a whole. Ever since the first cadaver organs were used for transplantation, organ procurement has relied on the altruism and goodwill of...

Xenotransplantation, in particular the transplantation of pig cells, tissues and organs into human recipients, may alleviate the current shortage of suitable allografts available for human transplantation. This overview addresses the physiological, immunological and microbial factors involved in xenotransplantation. The issues reviewed include the merits of using pigs as xenograft source specie...