Organ Transplantation

On this page

Basics

• Summary
• Start Here

Learn More

• Living With
• Related Issues
• Specifics

See, Play and Learn

• No links available

Research

• Statistics and Research
• Clinical Trials
• Journal Articles

Resources

• Find an Expert

For You

• Children
• Patient Handouts

Summary

You may need an organ transplant if one of your organs has failed. This can happen because of illness or injury. When you have an organ transplant, doctors remove an organ from another person and place it in your body. The organ may come from a living donor or a donor who has died.

The organs that can be transplanted include:

• Heart
• Intestine
• Kidney
• Liver
• Lung
• Pancreas

You often have to wait a long time for an organ transplant. Doctors must match donors to recipients to reduce the risk of transplant rejection. Rejection happens when your immune system attacks the new organ. If you have a transplant, you must take drugs the rest of your life to help keep your body from rejecting the new organ.

Start Here

• Organ Transplant Process (Health Resources and Services Administration)
• Organ Transplantation: Frequently Asked Questions (United Network for Organ Sharing)
• Partnering with Your Transplant Team: The Patient's Guide to Transplantation (Health Resources and Services Administration; United Network for Organ Sharing) - PDF

Living With

• Talking about Transplantation: What Every Patient Needs to Know (United Network for Organ Sharing) - PDF

Related Issues

• How We Match Organs (United Network for Organ Sharing)
• Xenotransplantation (Food and Drug Administration)

Specifics

• About Transplant Safety (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Statistics and Research

• Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Data and Calculators (Health Resources and Services Administration)
• The SRTR/OPTN Annual Data Report (Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Organ Transplantation (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Incidence and Outcomes of Candida Bloodstream Infection in Solid Organ Transplant...
• Article: Comparative Analysis of Efficacy and Safety of the Glucagon-Like-Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists...
• Article: Unveiling the Evolving Landscape of Randomized Clinical Trials in Transplantation: An...
• Organ Transplantation -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
• Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (Health Resources and Services Administration)

Children

• Organ Transplants: What Every Kid Needs to Know (United Network for Organ Sharing) - PDF

Patient Handouts

• Transplant rejection (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Transplant services (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish