Recent medical advances have greatly enhanced the ability to successfully transplant organs and tissue. Forty-five years ago the first successful kidney transplant was performed in the United States, followed twenty years later by the first heart transplant. Statistics from the United Network for Organ Sharing (ONOS) indicate that in 1998 a total of 20,961 transplants were performed in the United States. Although the number of transplants has risen sharply in recent years, the demand for organs far outweighs the supply. To date, more than 65,000 people are on the national organ transplant waiting list and about 4,000 of them will die thi