Organ Transplants

1. Organ Transplants

2. Most organs available for transplantation come from cadavers.

3. It takes many hours to tissue-type a cadaver, find a recipient with the same antigens, and fly the organ to the recipient’s city. • Only kidneys can be stored for this long, and still function. Therefore, only kidneys are matched for antigens. • Transplantation antigens are proteins expressed on the surface of an individual’s cells.

4. With organs like the liver, the heart, and the pancreas, only the blood type is matched between donor and recipient.

5. Until 1960, renal failure was fatal. • Kidney transplants offered the only hope to dying patients, as chronic machines had not yet become available.

6. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and autoimmune diseases of the kidney are some of the more common conditions causing kidney failure.

7. In most transplant centers, patients who have received vascularizedallotransplants are given a combination of immunosuppressive drugs.

8. Lymphocytes are white blood cells that are intimately involved in the body’s immune response. • They can be divided into two groups: B and T cells. • T lymphocytes are responsible for destroying allotransplants.

9. Azathiaprine was one of the first drugs to successfully inhibit T cells from replicating.

10. A tissue removed from one part of the body and transplanted to another site in the same individual is called an autograft.