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Nature Medicine  11, 605 - 613 (2005)
Published online: 3 June 2005; | doi:10.1038/nm1251

Organ transplantation—how much of the promise has been realized?

Robert I Lechler1, Megan Sykes2, Angus W Thomson3 & Laurence A Turka4

1  Guy's King's and St. Thomas's Medical School, King's College London, Hodgkin Building, Guy's Campus, London SE1 9RT, UK.

2  Departments of Surgery and Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, MGH East, Building 149-5102, 13th Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02129, USA.

3  Departments of Surgery and Immunology, University of Pittsburgh, 200 Lothrop Street, Biomedical Science Tower W1544, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.

4  Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 700 Clinical Research Building, 415 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.

Correspondence should be addressed to Laurence A Turka turka@mail.med.upenn.edu
Since the introduction of organ transplantation into medical practice, progress and optimism have been abundant. Improvements in immunosuppressive drugs and ancillary care have led to outstanding short-term (1−3-year) patient and graft survival rates. This success is mitigated by several problems, including poor long-term (>5-year) graft survival rates, the need for continual immunosuppressive medication and the discrepancy between the demand for organs and the supply. Developing methods to induce transplant tolerance, as a means to improve graft outcomes and eliminate the requirement for immunosuppression, and expanding the pool of organs for transplantation are the major challenges of the field.

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Nature Medicine
ISSN: 1078-8956
EISSN: 1546-170X
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