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Oct 19, 2021 · Since the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network began recording information about organ transplants in the United States in 1988, over 800,000 transplants have been performed in the US alone. 32 In the past 68 years, scientists, doctors, and patients have transformed transplantation from mythology into reality.
Oct 15, 2011 · The origins of organ transplantation. In 1894, the surgeon Otto Lanz (1865–1935) warned his colleagues not to scoff at a treatment “which aims at replacing the organ that has lost its function in the organism”. Today, no one would doubt the seriousness of a surgeon who treats a disease by replacing an organ.
- Thomas Schlich
- 2011
- Early History
- 16th Century
- Early 1900s
- 1905
- 1912
- 1936
- 1954
- 1960
- 1960s
- 1984
Ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese myths feature fanciful accounts of transplants performed by gods and healers, often involving cadavers or animals. While these tales are considered apocryphal, by 800 B.C. Indian doctors had likely begun grafting skin—technically the largest organ—from one part of the body to another to repair wounds and burns.
Italian surgeon Gasparo Tagliacozzi, sometimes known as the father of plastic surgery, reconstructed noses and ears using skin from patients’ arms. He found that skin from a different donor usually caused the procedure to fail, observing the immune response that his successors would come to recognize as transplant rejection.
European doctors attempted to save patients dying of renal failure by transplanting kidneys from various animals, including monkeys, pigs and goats. None of the recipients lived for more than a few days.
Eduard Zirm, an Austrian ophthalmologist, performed the world’s first corneal transplant, restoring the sight of a man who had been blinded in an accident.
Transplant pioneer Alexis Carrell received the Nobel Prize for his work in the field. The French surgeon had developed methods for connecting blood vessels and conducted successful kidney transplants on dogs. He later worked with aviator Charles Lindbergh to invent a device for keeping organs viable outside the body, a precursor to the artificial h...
Ukrainian doctor Yurii Voronoy transplanted the first human kidney, using an organ from a deceased donor. The recipient died shortly thereafter as a result of rejection.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a team of doctors at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital carried out a series of human kidney grafts, some of which functioned for days or even months. In 1954 the surgeons transplanted a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick into his twin brother Richard; since donor and recipient were genetically identical, th...
British immunologist Peter Medawar, who had studied immunosuppression’s role in transplant failures, received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of acquired immune tolerance. Soon after, anti-rejection drugs enabled patients to receive organs from non-identical donors.
The first successful lung, pancreas and liver transplants took place. In 1967, the world marveled when South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard replaced the diseased heart of dentist Louis Washkansky with that of a young accident victim. Although immunosuppressive drugs prevented rejection, Washkansky died of pneumonia 18 days later.
As transplants became less risky and more prevalent, the U.S. Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act to monitor ethical issues and address the country’s organ shortage. The law established a centralized registry for organ matching and placement while outlawing the sale of human organs. More than 100,000 people are currently on the nation...
Aug 21, 2024 · New developments in immunosuppression (the use of drugs to prevent organ rejection) advanced the field of transplantation enormously. Kidney transplantation became a routine procedure, supplemented by dialysis with an artificial kidney (invented by Willem Kolff in wartime Holland) before and after the operation, and mortality was reduced to about 10 percent per year by the 21st century.
Heterotopic heart transplantation played a significant role in the GSH program for several years but, when thyroid hormone therapy to the donor was introduced (resulting in improved immediate post-transplant function), and when the severity of rejection episodes was minimized by the new immunosuppressive agent, cyclosporine 32,33, Barnard’s unit reverted to orthotopic heart transplantation ...
A history of organ transplantation. 556 pages, hardback. £57.95. ISBN: 9780822944133. PUBLISHER University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh). 2012. Neville Jamieson. STAR RATING ★★★★★. David Hamilton was involved in transplant surgery in Glasgow and later became a medical historian at St Andrews. He is well placed to write this ...
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Most of us who are involved in organ transplantation know that Alexis Carrel was a pioneer in anastomosing blood vessels, which is essential if one is to transplant an organ. This was no mean feat in the first decade of the 20th century, when all he had available were straight needles threaded with silk. For these efforts he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2012 ...
