Methods and legal considerations of organ transplantation. Immunosuppression and complications

1. Big picture

Organ transplantation is the surgical replacement of a failing organ with a functioning organ or tissue from the same person, another person, or rarely another species. In surgery exams, this topic is not mainly about memorizing every transplant operation. The examiner wants you to understand:

Who can donate? Who can receive? How is the organ allocated legally and ethically? How is rejection prevented? What complications kill the patient or the graft?

The core transplant logic is:

**end-stage organ failure → donor identification → legal consent/authorization → compatibility testing → organ retrieval and preservation → implantation → immunosuppression → surveillance