Contemporary Science Issues

Lesson 2: Organ transplants – the facts and the dilemmas

Starter card sort (4 cards per A4 page)

© 2006 Gatsby Technical Education Projects

First Successful Live Donor Kidney Transplant

Dr. Joseph E. Murray and team perform the first successful kidney transplant in Boston. The transplant is from Ronald Herrick into his identical twin Richard. This was a major breakthrough in organ transplantation.

(a)

Xenotransplant – First Attempted Pig Heart Transplant

Dr. Ross of the National Heart Hospital in London attempts the transplant of a pig heart into a patient, but the heart ceases functioning in minutes. This research was as a result of successful human transplantation.

(b)

Transplantation of all Abdominal Organs

In order to transplant a new kidney, pancreas, stomach, liver, large and small bowel, and one iliac artery, doctors at the University of Miami in Florida remove all abdominal organs from a patient with Gardner's syndrome.

(c)

First Face Transplant

Surgeons carried out the world's first face transplant in France. Surgeons in Britain and the United States say they are now also ready to graft the face of a dead person on to someone who has been facially disfigured.

(d)

First Successful Cornea Transplant

Dr. Eduard Zirm, a surgeon working in the Czech town of Olmutz, performs the first corneal transplant to maintain some degree of transparency. Few other surgeons match Zirm's success until after the Second World War, when very fine needles and finer silk become available.

(e)

First Successful Liver Transplant

Dr. Thomas E. Starzl of the University of Colorado performs the first successful liver transplant. The liver functions for 13 months. Surprisingly this was before a heart transplant!

(f)

First Successful Heart-Lung Transplant

Dr. Bruce Reitz of Stanford University in California, performs the first successful heart-lung transplant. Cyclosporine is experimentally used to combat rejection.

(g)

First Womb Transplant

Dr. Wafa Fageeh from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, transplants the uterus of a 46-year-old into a 26-year-old woman. The uterus produces two menstrual periods before it fails after three months and has to be removed. Following the success of most other organ transplanting the recent trends of IVF treatment eventually lead to this innovative surgery.

(h)

First Successful Heart Transplant

Dr. Christiaan Barnard, in Cape Town, South Africa, transplants the heart of an 18-year-old female car accident victim into Louis Washkansky. He dies 18 days later of pneumonia.

(j)

First Combination Heart, Liver, and Kidney Transplant

Surgeons at Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, transplant a heart, liver, and kidney into a 26-year-old woman. She survives for four months.

(k)

Research into Rejection

British scientist Peter Medawar discovers that animal embryos exposed to foreign tissues do not reject the tissues and concludes that rejection of a transplant is based on immunologic factors. Much later a winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Medicine "for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance."

(i)

First Tongue Transplant

A team of Austrian doctors at Vienna's General Hospital performs a 14-hour tongue transplant on a 42-year-old man suffering from a malignant tumour affecting his tongue and jaw. Whatever next!

(l)