Auxiliary heart transplantation.
At the present time, the major obstacles in the successful clinical application of heart transplantation are the immunological attack on the allograft, the treatment of complications resulting from immunosuppression, and the supply of transplantable hearts. Recently, auxiliary heart transplantation has been proved to be a successful technique for treatment of end-stage myocardial failure in humans. Here we review the experimental work in auxiliary heart transplantation leading to the present technique used in humans.
D000005:Abdomen; D000818:Animals; D001243:Assisted Circulation; D004285:Dogs; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D013909:Thorax; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous / Q000379:methods*