Recent advances in cardiac transplantation

Nineteen eighty-nine marked the 22nd anniversary of the first human allogenic cardiac transplant. Since 1967, the field of cardiac transplantation has continued to grow and mature. Initial concerns regarding surgical complications and hyperacute rejection have diminished. The field now focuses on problems of donor shortages; patient selection; long-term post-transplant physiology; and complications of rejection, immunosuppressive therapy, and graft-related coronary artery disease. The year 1989 saw the publication of a number of studies that expanded and refined our knowledge of transplantation. It should be noted that progress in cardiac transplantation does not occur in a vacuum. Advances made with transplantation of other organs may, in the future, apply directly to cardiac transplantation. For this reason, important studies from 1989 relating to heart or other solid organ transplants will be briefly reviewed.