The development of heart and heart-lung transplantation at Stanford. Honored guest's lecture.
Transplantation of the heart is now accepted and perhaps even routine therapy for patients near death from heart disease. Better, more specific, less toxic molecules are under investigation for the control of rejection. The Holy Grail of tolerance is not beyond the realm of possibility. The mini-chimera concept almost certainly raises the specter of potentially successful xenografts. If not in this decade, certainly in this generation. Transplantation of the heart and both lungs constituted the first successful lung transplant of any kind. The ultimate division of indications for single lung, sequential bilateral lung, or heart-lung transplantation will be settled only by the accumulation of more clinical data. With respect to pulmonary transplantation, a few technical points have become clear. First, the double lung transplant with a tracheal anastomosis has been abandoned owing to the complications of tracheal stenosis and tracheal dehiscence. Second, there is no need to wrap the bronchial anastomosis with omentum; there is no need to "telescope" the donor bronchus. Finally, simple, continuous polypropylene suture technique should be used for any tracheal (heart-lung transplantation) or bronchial anastomosis.