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The current United States heart allocation system faces 2 main challenges: an evolving landscape of device therapy in advanced heart failure and a rapidly increasing transplant waiting list. The proposed new heart allocation system involves expansion of the 3 tiers and enables greater distinction between different types of mechanical circulatory support devices. In this review, we discuss how the proposed revision reconciles key concerns of the current system to create a more fair and equitable allocation of hearts in the United States., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Pediatric transplant candidates include heart, lung, liver, pancreas, small intestine, and kidney. The purpose of this article is to review the history and current methods for determining priority of the above-mentioned transplantable organs. The methods used by the authors involved the review of historical and current manuscripts and UNOS policy documents. We summarized the findings in order to create a concise review of the current policies and wait times for transplantation in pediatric transplant patients., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Since the first successful liver transplantation by Starzl et al. in 1967, liver transplantation has become the standard therapy for many liver diseases, mainly chronic liver disease. Most liver transplantations performed in Europe and North America utilize deceased donors while a considerable portion of organ requirements is supplied by living donors in Asian countries including Turkey. The actual history of solid organ transplantation in Turkey began with the pioneering work of Dr. Haberal in collaboration with Thomaz E. Starzl in 1974 in Colorado University at Denver. The first successful solid organ transplantation in Turkey was accomplished by Haberal in 1975 with a living donor renal transplantation. Subsequently, legislations no 2238 and 2594 dated 1979 and 1982, respectively, were passed, paving the way for cadaveric tissue/organ utilization and preservation in Turkey. The first deceased donor liver transplantation and the first living donor liver transplantation were performed in 1988 and 1990, respectively. There are currently 45 liver transplantation centers in Turkey. Of these, 25 are state universities, 8 are private (foundation) universities, 9 are private hospitals, and 3 are training and research hospitals belonging to the Ministry of Health. A total of 7152 liver transplantations were performed in Turkey between January 2002 and May 2014. Of these, 4848 (67.8%) used living donors and 2304 (32.2%) used deceased donors. These figures indicate that, despite widespread organ donation campaigns and media-sponsored propaganda, desired targets have not been met yet in providing deceased organ donation. Despite unsatisfactory levels attained in supplying deceased donors, both the number of annual liver transplantations and improvements in overall survival rates of organ transplanted patients continues to increase. Actually, the one-year patient survival rate after liver transplantation in 2013 was 80.5%. This rate is getting better with each passing year and believed to be close to 90% in the next few years., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) and its periodic revisions provide a template for the creation and amendment of legislation to adjust public policy and align it with developments in medical practice. It is also a model for statutory response to societal change as well as changes in regulatory and judicial precedents. Conversely, the history of the UAGA shows the limits of legislation to achieve certain social goals.