Transplantable organs and tissues may both refer to organs and tissues that are relatively often or routinely transplanted here main organs and tissues, as well as relatively seldom transplanted organs and tissues and ones on the experimental stage.
Heart
Heart transplantation
Diagram illustrating the placement of a donor heart in an orthotopic procedure. Notice how the back of the patient's left atrium and great vessels are left in place.
Heart transplantation is performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. The most common procedure is to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart may either be removed or, less commonly, left in to support the donor heart. It is also possible to take a heart from another species (xenograft), or implant a man-made artificial one, although the outcome of these two procedures has been less successful in comparison to the far more commonly performed allografts. |
