Cardiac xenotransplantation

Abstract

The scarcity of human donor hearts limits cardiac transplantation to a small fraction of potential recipients. This scarcity will probably increase during the next several decades. While mechanical and bioengineered hearts might, in principle, supplant cardiac transplantation, the related cost and technical sophistication required may limit their use. Using hearts from animals (called xenotransplantation), especially from swine, could potentially address the scarcity of human hearts and the limitations of devices and bioengineered organs. However, the immune response of the recipient against the graft, and the potential for transferring zoonoses and physiologic incompatibilities, appears to pose barriers to clinical cardiac xenotransplantation today.