Transplantation and Changing Management of Organ Failure

This book, the proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Transplantation and Clinical Immunology, held in Lyon, France, on May 25-26, 2000, addresses novel issues in terms of changing indications for transplantation in the management of organ failure, whether humans will remain the only source for organ procurement, prospects for engineering in organ replacement, and whether transplantation will remain the most appropriate approach to organ failure. Some promising treatments are approached, such as enzymic and biochemical replacement, gene therapy, tolerance induction, stem cell transplantation, and xenotransplantation. In addition to the constant improvement in conservative management of organ failure in general, ongoing research in selected fields is reported in the proceedings, such as liver transplantation vs artificial liver, novel dialysis strategies vs evolving immunosuppression in kidney transplantation, islets transplantation and external implantable insulin pumps vs pancreas transplantation in diabetic patients, circulatory assistance and intramyocardial myoblast injection vs heart transplantation. Pivotal experience in selected emerging transplantations is included, that is, small bowel, limb, skin and neuronal transplantation. Such fascinating perspectives raise medical, economical, and ethical problems which are discussed in this book.