The United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit organization that contracts with the government to manage the country's organ transplantation system, reports that over 750,000 transplants have been performed in the USA since 1988. Over 113,000 individuals are currently listed as candidates on waiting lists for organs. In 2016, just over 23,000 referrals to organ procurement organizations met criteria for eligible or imminent death per the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network definition, leading to almost 10,000 deceased donors for transplant.

Although a variety of clinical factors among the donors and recipients affect the success of individual solid organ transplants, outcomes and developments across the field continue to broadly improve over time. Most recently, the field has seen expansion and preliminary successes in vascularized composite allotransplantation, or the transplantation of multiple tissues as a functional unit.

In this commentary, published in the journal Nanodmedicine, Jordan Covvey (Duquesne University School of Pharmacy; PA, USA) and Erin E Mancl (Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals; NJ, USA) detail the importance of highly effective immunosuppression to the filed of solid organ transplantation and highlight the future scientific advancement required to further improve transplant patients' quality of life.

Read the full commentary, for free, in Nanomedicine now >>