Physiologic incompatibilities in discordant xenotransplantation

Xenotransplantation--federal regulatory considerations

Xenotransplantation may offer benefits to individual patients, but may also pose significant risks, to the recipient and to the public at large. The United States Food and Drug Administration endeavors to meet the challenge of regulating xenotransplantation to allow its development while safeguarding the public health. The approach includes using the existing FDA regulatory framework, publishing xenotransplantation-specific guidance documents, obtaining public input, and collaborating with other public health agencies and international bodies in order to develop and maintain a safe and rational program for the regulation of xenotransplantation.

Xenotransplantation: regulatory challenges

During 1999-2000, the US government published three xenotransplantation policy/guidance documents, one by the Public Health Service and two by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA also held two public meetings of the xenotransplantation subcommittee of the Biological Response Modifiers Advisory Committee to discuss particular issues in xenotransplantation.

Neural tissue xenotransplantation: what is needed prior to clinical trials in Parkinson's disease? Neural Tissue Xenografting Project

Embryonic allografted human tissue in patients with Parkinson's disease has been shown to survive and ameliorate many of the symptoms of this disease. Despite this success, the practical problems of using this tissue coupled to the ethical restrictions of using aborted human fetal tissue have lead to an exploration for alternative sources of suitable material for grafting, including xenogeneic embryonic dopaminergic-rich neural tissue. Nevertheless, xenografted neural tissue itself generates a number of practical, ethical, safety, and immunological issues that have to be addressed prior to any clinical xenotransplant program. In this article we review these critical issues and set out the criteria that we consider need to be met in the development of our clinical xenotransplantation research programs. We advocate that these, or similar, criteria should be adopted and made explicit by other centers contemplating similar clinical trials.