Newborn Pig-to-Baboon Cardiac Xenotransplantation: A Model of Delayed Xenograft Rejection

Cardiac transplantation is currently the best therapeutic option available to patients with end-stage heart disease. However, the supply of human donor hearts remains inadequate to meet the ever-increasing demand. Approximately 17 000 people per year under the age of 55 could benefit from cardiac allotrans-plantation in the United States alone. Unfortunately, no more than 2200 donor hearts per year are currently available [1]. As a result of this shortage, 30% of adult patients awaiting cardiac transplantation die before a donor is found [2]. The need for grafts is particularly desperate among newborn infants with congenital malformations, for whom the wait for an available organ results in death even more frequently than in adults.