抄録
Around 50 thouthand patients have died from ischemic heart disease (IHD) and 800 from idiopathic cardiomyopathy (ICM) in 1980 in Japan. Out of them 4, 000 (8% of the total mortality) of IHD and 300 (39%) of ICM were younger than 55 years of age. Among 8, 000 outpatients with heart disease in our two affiriate hospitals, 423 have suffered from myocardial infarction (MI) and 205 from ICM. According to the criteria of recipient selection in Stanford there have been 9 candidates (2 with MI and 7 with ICM) for recipient among patients of these hospitals. There were 21 brain deathes without heart disease in the Department of Traumatology in our hospital last year. There have been candidates for recipients and donors, nevertheless only one clinical heart transplantation has been done in Japan. This is based on the ehtical problem, that the concept of brain death has not been accepted by the general public. Therefore, the beating heart can not be procured for heart transplantation. Accordingly, it is very important to let the public accept the concept of brain death. Before the acceptance of the concept was obtained, a methode to utilize an arrested heart as a donor heart should be developed. An experimental study to use the arrested heart was presented briefly in this symposium.
