Professional and Personal Aspects of Solid Organ and Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Abstract

When a person is diagnosed with endstage disease of the heart, liver, or lung and all other potentially life-continuing options for that patient have been exhausted, the only chance at enhancing her or his life's quality and extending its quantity is to exchange the sick-unto-death native organ for a transplanted, well donor organ. When a person is beset with physiologic failure of the corneas, kidneys, pancreas, or small bowel, she or he may elect to undergo transplantation to exchange the incapacitated native organ for a well donor organ, instead of selecting other available and well-known but cumbersome and more inconvenient medical technologies. When a person's bone marrow ceases to make and replace blood cells or when extremely high doses of chemotherapy destroy her or his stem cells, a bone marrow transplantation may be necessary to enhance the patient's quality of life and extend its quantity. This viewpoint addresses professional and personal aspects of these procedures.