Xenografts.

Increasing success in clinical organ transplantation has had the paradoxical effect of highlighting the problem of donor organ shortage. Even with improved procurement of human organs, there remains a shortage. This factor has provided a continuing stimulation for studies directed toward eventual use of non-human organs in man. Studies done a quarter-century ago showed that chimpanzee kidneys transplanted into patients functioned for as long as nine months. There are serious logistic and ethical problems surrounding the use of this species. We have studied cardiac transplantation in a lower primate model (monkey-baboon), and these studies provide encouragement in the field of xenotransplantation.