Tokyo Women's Medical University

School of Medicine

Department of Organ Transplant Medicine

Overview

　Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital is currently registered with the Japan Organ Transplant Network as one of the few multi-organ transplant hospitals in Japan that can perform heart, kidney, liver, pancreas, simultaneous pancreas and kidney, and simultaneous liver and kidney transplants, and plays an extremely important role in society. Our hospital is also proud of being one of the highest numbers of living donor transplants such as living donor kidney transplants and living donor partial liver transplants in Japan and making it a core facility for transplantation medicine in Japan.
　Until now, our section has been managed by the head of the office (concurrently), four transplant coordinators of various specialties, and one donor coordinator, dispersed among the various departments. From now on, the Department of Organ Transplant Medicine will take the lead in performing the following tasks in a cross-disciplinary manner.
① Management of patients on the transplant waiting list (Japan Organ Transplant Network)
② Reporting of data on organ transplant patients
③ Organ transplant review meetings before and after transplantation
④ Work related to dissemination and awareness-raising (in collaboration with the Japan Organ Transplant Network)
⑤ Assurance of the quality of immunological tests related to organ transplantation
⑥ Management and donation of brain-dead and heart-dead donors

Education Details

　Aiming to establish expertise in organ transplantation, it is necessary to educate hospital staff on the main transplant-related social background, pathophysiology, basic knowledge, and treatment strategies. Until now, there has been no organizational body capable of conducting such activities, but we intend to move forward with such activities under the leadership of the Department of Organ Transplant Medicine.
Our action goals are；
1) To educate and enlighten the public on basic issues in organ transplantation, including histocompatibility, transplant immunity, organ preservation, and immunosuppressive agents.
2) To educate and enlighten students on clinical medical issues in transplantation, including kidney, liver, pancreas, ethical and social issues, organ transplantation network system, basic knowledge of xenotransplantation and regenerative medicine and its application to organ transplantation.

Research Details

　The organ transplantation results in Japan and at our university are among the best in the world. Among them, the total number of kidney transplants performed at our university since 1971 has exceeded 4,000, and one-year graft survival is now over 95%. However, there has been little improvement in the long-term survival rate of 15 to 20 years or more. The final cause of graft loss is known to be chronic rejection and toxicity due to long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs. Moreover, fibrosis is a feature of long-term transplanted organs, and how to reduce fibrosis will be the key to improve long-term survival in the future.
　On the other hand, the number of brain-dead organs donated in Japan is by far the lowest among developed countries and is reported to be 1/50th to 1/100th of that in Western countries. It is urgently required to make drastic organizational reforms, such as increasing the dissemination rate of organ donation cards, transplant education, and awareness-raising activities. 　
　The Department of Organ Transplant Medicine is committed to addressing these scientific and social ethical issues as its research agenda.

Faculty

Hideki Ishida
Tomokazu Shimizu
Kohei Unagami
Rikako Oki

Related links

Japan Organ Transplant Network HP
The Japan Society for Transplantaion HP
Research Achievements Database

---