Principles of Critical Care > Part X. The Surgical Patient > Chapter 90. The Transplant Patient Damon C. Scales, John T. Granton

Key Points

"This chapter provides a practical approach to the critical care of patients following the most common solid-organ transplant procedures. Important scientific advances have greatly improved our understanding of transplant immunology. Therapies have been developed that markedly decrease the incidence and severity of allograft rejection, and this has resulted in dramatic improvements in the outcomes of transplant recipients (Table 90-1). The major causes of morbidity and death in these patients depend on the time since transplantation. Technical and bacterial infectious complications predominate in the early postoperative period. Chronic rejection remains the major cause of death overall in these patients, occurring months to years after transplantation (Fig. 90-1)...."