Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Successful solid organ transplantation represents one of the great medical advances of the twentieth century . The field continues to be an exciting and fast-moving one. Unfor tunately , there continues to be a shortage of suitable donor organs for transplantation. In the UK there are approximately 4000 patients waiting for a kidney but only 3750 transplants are performed annually . This has led to a median waiting time for transplantation of around 3 years. Similar shortages exist for heart, lung, liver and pancreas transplantation across the world. Most transplant organs are from deceased donors, of which there are two types: donation after brainstem death (DBD) and donation after circulatory death (DCD). Living donation is limited to kidney , liver and lung transplantation.