immunology allergic disorders
Overview of Transplantation
Graft rejection and graft vs host disease
All allograft recipients are at risk of graft rejection; the recipient’s immune system recognizes the graft as foreign and seeks to destroy it. Recipients of grafts containing immune cells (particularly bone marrow, intestine, and liver) are at risk of graft-vs-host disease, in which the donor immune cells attack recipient tissue. Risk of these complications is minimized by pretransplantation screening and immunosuppressive therapy during and after transplantation. 