As early as the 18th century, researchers were exploring the possibility of organ transplantation. The discovery of blood groups was a significant factor in making the possibility of organ transplantation a reality. With this discovery, researchers and physicians understood the importance of having a blood type match for successful function of the organ in the recipient. In 1943, scientists discovered that the body's rejection of transplanted skin was caused by the immune system. With this realization, scientists were able to focus their research on finding ways to prevent the body's immune system from rejecting a transplanted organ. Jean Borel discovered a medication called Cyclosporine that prevented this immune response in the mid 1970s. This discovery represented overcoming a significant hurdle to creating lasting function of a transplanted organ. These medical breakthroughs, in conjunction with the advancement of tissue typing and organ preservation techniques in the 1970s, paved the way for successful transplantation.
History
Year 800 BC - Report by potters of the Koomas caste that the surgeon Susrata grafte noses created from skin flaps. - India
Year 15 AD - Report of Saint Peter replacing the young Agatha's breasts, which were cut off as punishment by Roman guards. - Jerusalem
Year c. 200 AD - Report of Hua-To replacing diseased organs with healthy ones; first reference to the concept of organ transplantation and replacement for therapeutic purposes. - China
Year c. 300 AD - Report of the miracle by Saints Cosmas and Damian (brothers and patrons of physicians and surgeons), in which the leg of a deceased Moor was grafted onto a person whose leg was diseased. - Turkey
Year 1200 AD - Report of Saint Anthony of Padua grafting the foot of a young man who had deliberately mutilated himself. - Padua, Italy
16th century - Gaspare Tagliocozzi transplanted skin from the patients' own arms to re-create their noses. - Italy
Year 1668 - First successful bone graft (bone from a dog's skull used to repair defect in human cranium). - Holland
Year 1746 - Dr. Garengeot successfully regrafted a soldier's nose back on. - France
Year 1749 - Naturalist and physiologist Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau successfully transplanted spurs removed from young chickens onto the comb of the same animal, as well as another animal. - France
Year 1744 - Abraham Trembley performed the first experiments of transplantation in animals (hydra); at roughly the same time Charles Bonnet confirmed these experiments with earthworms. - Geneva, Switzerland
Year 1804 - Italian "animal grafting" pioneer, Giuseppe Boronio (1759-1811), successfully replaced skin grafts on the back of a sheep. - Italy
Year 1822 - First successful skin autograft (transplantation of skin from one location on patient's body to another location on their body), by Berger.
Year 1851 - Brown Sequard was able to successfully restore muscular contractility in the hand of an executed prisoner thus paving the way for experimental organ perfusion.
Year 1869 - Fresh allograft (transplant from one individual to another) of skin, by Swiss surgeon Jacques Louis Reverdin. - Switzerland
Year 1880 - First reported cornea transplants.
Year 1880 - First clinical bone autograft, by William MacEwen. - Scotland
Year 1881 - First temporary skin graft (the skin was from another patient who had just died). "A medical journal in 1881 discussed the first skin transplant; the patient involved was leaning against a metal door when lightning struck, burning the skin off his arm. The presiding surgeon used skin from a patient who had just died as a temporary graft."
Year 1890 - Locke - preservation solution.
Year 1895 - Ringer - preservation solution.
Year 1896 - head grafts on dogs and monkeys, by Dr. White.
Year 1898 - Mathieu Jaboulay, successful introduced and executed his circular everting suture on a donkey.
Year 1902 - Emerich Ullmann - first successful experimental kidney transplant (in neck of a dog) - Alexis Carrel
Year 1906 - First corneal transplant, by Dr. Edward Zirm. First human kidney transplant, using animal kidney (xenograft)- Jaboulay.
Year 1908 - Successful cadaveric knee joint transplant, by Dr. Erik Lexer. Carrell - first autologous renal transplantation with survival of several years.
Year 1905, 1906 - Blind man was able to see after receiving a cornea transplant. "1905, Edward Zirm, an Austrian ophthalmologist, restored sight to a workman blinded by lime." 1905-6 Carrell and Guthrie - replacing artery with segment of vein; en bloc txp of two kidneys perfused with Locke's solution Jaboulay - txp of pig kidney into human. - Austria
Year 1908 - First successful cadaveric knee joint transplant. Carrel - successful limb transplants between dogs.
Year 1913 - Schonstadt repeats experiment of transplanting a kidney from a Japanese monkey into a young girl with nephritis caused by mercury poisoning. After producing small amounts of urine, the patient died 60 hours after transplant.
Year 1923 - Williamson of Mayo Clinic in Rochester gained a new strife in for transplations by confirming the success of autologous transplations in a dog and the rejection of homologous transplants.
Year 1933 - First homologous kidney transplant from cadaver. (First human kidney transplant - allograft Voronoy, 1936).
Year 1947 - Young Urologist Landsteiner intended to sustain renal function with a temporary kidney in a young woman suffering from a profound coma. Although the transplant was unable to sustain life it acted as a "crutch" in kidney functioning.
Year 1949 - U.S. Navy establishes first U.S. Tissue bank at Bethesda, Maryland USA.
1940s - Refrigerated skin used as temporary dressing for burns. "In the l940s Sir Peter Medawar reported using refrigerated skin as a temporary "dressing" for burns. " - London, England
Year 1951 - unsucessful human kidney txps --- also: "The first kidney transplant in the United States was performed in l950 by Dr. Lawler." Human kidney transplants without immunosuppression, in Paris and Boston. - Paris, France and Boston, Massachusetts; USA
Year 1953 - First use of live related human [kidney?] donor. - Paris, France
Year 1954 - First successful kidney transplant. The donor was the living identical twin brother of the recipient, and the kidney functioned for 8 years. At Peter Brent Brigham Hospital. "1954 First successful kidney transplant in the world, Dr. Joseph E. Murray, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston." - USA
Year 1962 - First postmortem kidney transplant. The kidney functioned for 21 months. At Peter Brent Brigham Hospital. - Boston, Massachusetts; USA
Year 1963 - First human liver transplant (U of Colorado). "In l963, Dr. Thomas Starzl performed the first human liver transplant." - Denver, Colorado; USA
Year 1963 - First lung transplant (U of MS). "The first lung transplant was performed by Dr. James D. Hardy in l963 at the University of Mississippi. " - Jackson, Mississippi; USA
Year 1966 - First successful postmortem pancreas transplant. First simultaneous pancreas/kidney transplant, Drs. Richard Lillehei, William Kelly, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. - USA
Year 1967 - First successful liver transplant; the liver functioned for 13 months (U of CO). "In l967 Dr. Richard C. Lillehei at the University of Minnesota, performed the first successful pancreas transplant. "First successful liver transplant in the world, by Dr. Thomas Starzl, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colo.
Year 1967 - First heart transplant; the heart functioned for 18 days (Groote Schur Hospital). "Also in 1967, Dr. Christian Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa, using techniques pioneered at Stanford University by Drs. Norman Shumway and Richard Lower, performed the first successful heart transplant." - Cape Town, South Africa
Year 1967 - First successful pancreas transplant from deceased donor performed at the University of Minnesota. - Minneapolis, Minnesota; USA
Year 1968 - First successful heart transplant in the United States performed at Stanford University Hospital. - Stanford, California; USA
Year 1969 - First pancreas transplant from deceased donor performed by Dr. Lillche at the University of Minnesota. - Minneapolis, Minnesota; USA
Year 1969 - Discovery of the fungus that lead to cyclosporine, in samples of soil from Wisconsin and the Hardanger Vidda (fjord) in Norway, by Jean Borel. - Norway and Wisconsin
Year 1971 - First human skin allografts using cryopreserved human skin.
Year 1972 - Jean Borel identifies immunosuppressive properties of cyclosporine isolated from the fungus Beauveria nivea. - Basle, Switzerland
Year 1978 - First successful pancreas transplant from a living donor related to the recipient (their mother). It functioned for 84 months (U of MN). - Minneapolis, Minnesota; USA
Year 1980 - cyclosporine molecule first synthesized. - Basle, Switzerland
Year 1981 - First successful heart-lung transplant; they functioned for 5 years (Stanford U Hospital). " The first successful heart-lung transplant was performed at Stanford University in l981 by [Dr. Norman] Shumway and Dr. Bruce Reitz." - Stanford, California; USA
Year 1982 - First artificial heart transplant; it functioned for 112 days (U of Utah). Barney Clark receives the first permanent artificial heart at the University of Utah. - Salt Lake City, Utah; USA
Year 1983 - First successful single lung transplant; it functioned for 7 years (Toronto General Hospital). - Toronto, Canada
Year 1983 - Nov. 1983 --- The most notable development in this area was Jean Borel's discovery of an immunosuppressant drug called cyclosporine in the mid- 1970s. This drug was approved for commercial use in November 1983. 1983: Cyclosporine, an anti-rejection drug, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (US Gov.). - Washington, DC; USA
Year 1984 - First baboon to human heart transplant (Baby Faye); it functioned for 20 days (Loma Linda Medical Center). 1984: National Organ Transplant Act signed into law establishing a national system to match donors and recipients. - Loma Linda, California; USA
Year 1985 - First artificial heart bridge; it functioned for 9 days (U of AZ). - Tucson, Arizona; USA
Year 1986 - First successful double lung transplant; by Dr. Joel Cooper, Toronto Lung Transplant Group, Toronto General Hospital, Canada
Year 1987 - First "domino" transplant takes place in Baltimore, Maryland, in which a patient with diseased lungs but a healthy heart receives a heart-lung transplant and then donates their healthy heart to a patient needing a heart transplant. - Baltimore, Maryland; USA
Year 1989 - First successful living-related liver transplant (U of Chicago). - Chicago, Illinois; USA
Year 1990 - First successful living-related lung transplant from recipient's mother (Stanford University Medical Center). - Stanford, California; USA
Year 1990 - First successful liver-intestinal transplant, Dr. David Grant, University of London Ontario. - Ontario, Canada.
Year 1992 - First baboon to human liver transplant; recipient lived for 70 days.Performed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; USA
Year 1992 - First pig to human liver transplant; recipient died 2 days after (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center). - Los Angeles, California; USA
Year 1993 - First successful living related lung lobes transplant (one from each of recipient's parents), University of Southern California. - Los Angeles, California; USA
Year 1996 - First court-ordered liver transplant. Patient's parents initially refused treatment for religious reasons (Children's Hospital Medical Center). - Cincinnati, Ohio; USA
Year 1996 - First successful split-liver transplants from a cadaveric donor (University Hospital Eppendorf). - Hamburg, Germany
Today, the greatest barrier to successful transplantation is the shortage of organ donors. The advancement of transplant medicine over the past 50 years has given life to thousands of patients suffering from end-stage organ failure. This success has been so great that today there are more than 74,000 patients waiting for a life-saving organ. Yet, the number of donors has remained stable over the past 10 years. While modern medicine has developed a treatment option that gives life and hope to this patient population, the education of the public about the dire need for organ donation is the challenge transplant medicine faces today.
