[Cardiac transplantation: present status and future].

Since December 1967, more than 20,000 patients underwent cardiac transplantation in the world. The results have improved with time. The actuarial survival rate of the patients, operated upon in the last five years, is 80% at one year and 70% at five years after surgery. Today, new-born, infants as well as elderly persons of more than 70 years of age undergo surgery. The greatest problem in cardiac transplantation is the lack of donor hearts. The artificial heart, as well as, xenotransplantation is now under active investigation to overcome this problem. Cardiac transplantation has been started in Asian countries, such as, Formosa, Thailand, Singapore and Korea, the present situation in Japan must be unbearable for patients who require cardiac transplantation.