Current trends in transplantation and immunosuppressive treatment.

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American Society of Transplantation jointly sponsored their third American Transplant Congress on May 30-June 4, 2003. The meeting, which took place in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., thoroughly reviewed the different immunosuppressive protocols for every kind of transplantation. Also presented were the immunological and nonimmunological factors influencing the success or failure of transplants from the point of view of genetics, the place of new investigative agents and the current status of various therapeutic protocols intended to induce tolerance or normal function of grafts in the absence of immunosuppressive treatment. Presentations on renal, liver, heart, lung, multivisceral and islet transplantation are covered in this report, as well as aspects of new immunosuppressive agents, genomics in transplantation and tolerance induction in allotransplantation.