Which Organs Can Be Donated for Transplantation?

*Heart*

Diagram illustrating the placement of a donor heart in an orthotopic procedure. Notice how the back of the patient's left atrium and great vessels are left in place.

Heart transplantation or cardiac transplantation, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. The most common procedure is to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor (allograft) and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart may either be removed (orthotopic procedure) or, less commonly, left in to support the donor heart (heterotopic procedure). It is also possible to take a heart from another species (xenograft), or implant a man-made artificial one, although the outcome of these two procedures has been less successful in comparison to the far more commonly performed allografts.

*Hand*

The operation is carried out in the following order: bone fixation, tendon repair, artery repair, nerve repair, then vein repair. The operation typically lasts 8 to 12 hours — by comparison a typical heart transplant operation lasts 6 to 8 hours. The recipient of a hand transplant needs to take immunosuppressive drugs, as the body's natural immune system will try to reject the hand. These drugs cause the recipient to have a weaker immune system, and suffer severely even from minor illnesses. A hand transplant was performed in Ecuador in 1964, but the patient suffered from transplant rejection after only 2 weeks. The first short-term success in human hand transplantion occurred with New Zealander, Clint Hallam. The operation was performed on September 23, 1998 in Lyon, France. After the operation, Hallam wasn't comfortable with the idea of his transplanted hand, and failed to follow the post operation drug and physiotherapy programme, and his body started rejecting the hand. The transplanted hand was removed at his request on February 2, 2001. The Hallam case demonstrates the risk of performing these procedures in unsuitable patients. Hallam, a convicted con-man, had many red-flags which made him a poor candidate for undertaking the rigorous post-operative regimen required for success[citation needed]. The French surgical team and their process for patient selection were criticized by many peers for seeming to seek media publicity for being the first to perform the procedure instead of carefully selecting a better candidate[citation needed]. The first hand transplant to achieve prolonged success was directed by University of Louisville surgeons Drs. Warren Breidenbach and Tsu-Min Tsai in cooperation with the Kleinert Hand Institute and Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. The procedure was performed on New Jersey native Matthew Scott on January 24, 1999. Scott had lost his hand in a fireworks accident at age 24. In contrast to the earlier attempts at hand transplantation, the Louisville group had performed much of the basic science research and feasibility studies on the proposed procedure. There also was considerable transparency and internal review board oversite involved in the screening and selection of prospective patients. University of Louisville doctors also performed a successful hand transplant on Michigan native Jerry Fisher in February 2001. On January 14, 2004, the team of Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard (Edouard-Herriot Hospital, France) declared a five-year old double hand transplant a success. The lessons learned in this case, and in the 26 other hand tranplants (6 double) which occurred between 2000 and 2005, might open the way for more common transplant operations of such organs as the face or larynx.

*Skin*

For alternate meanings see skin (disambiguation). In zootomy and dermatology, skin is the largest organ of the integumentary system made up of multiple layers of epithelial tissues that guard underlying muscles and organs. As the interface with the surroundings, it plays the most important role in protecting (the body) against pathogens. Its other main functions are insulation and temperature regulation, sensation and vitamin D and B synthesis. Skin is considered one of the most important parts of the body. Skin has pigmentation, or melanin, provided by melanocytes, which absorb some of the potentially dangerous ultraviolet radiation in sunlight. It also contains DNA repair enzymes which help to reverse UV damage, and people who lack the genes for these enzymes suffer high rates of skin cancer. One form predominantly produced by UV light, malignant melanoma, is particularly invasive, causing it to spread quickly, and can often be deadly. Human skin pigmentation varies among populations in a striking manner. This has sometimes led to the classification of people(s) on the basis of skin color. Mammalian skin often contains hairs, which in sufficient density is called fur. The hair mainly serves to augment the insulation the skin provides, but can also serve as a secondary sexual characteristic or as camouflage. On some animals the skin is very hard and thick, and can be processed to create leather. Reptiles and fish have hard protective scales on their skin for protection, and birds have hard feathers, all made of tough β-keratins. Amphibian skin is not a strong barrier to passage of chemicals and is often subject to osmosis. A frog sitting in an anesthetic solution will quickly go to sleep. Damaged skin will try to heal by forming scar tissue, often giving rise to discoloration and depigmentation of the skin. The skin is often known as "the largest organ of the human body". This applies to exterior surface, as it covers the body, appearing to have the largest surface area of all the organs. Moreover, it applies to weight, as it weighs more than any single internal organ, accounting for about 15 percent of body weight. For the average adult human, the skin has a surface area of between 1.5-2.0 square meters, most of it is between 2-3 mm thick. The average square inch of skin holds 650 sweat glands, 20 blood vessels, 60,000 melanocytes, and more than a thousand nerve endings. The use of natural or synthetic cosmetics to treat the appearance of the face and condition of the skin (such as pore control and black head cleansing) is common among many cultures.

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