• Living Unrelated transplants

These are somewhat less common in Malaysia and involve ethical issues. However, kidney transplants have been performed for example kidney transplants from non-blood relatives, particularly the spouses ("emotionally related"). The commonest unrelated living transplants in the workd today would be bone marrow transplantation but unforunately this is not yet possible in Malaysia as we do not yet have an unrelated bone marrow donor registry

• Living related transplants

The organ is donated from a living relative of the patient. This usually requires some degree of tissue matching done by tests called "tissue typing". Living related transplants done in Malaysia include:

- kidney transplants

- bone marrow transplants

- partial liver transplants

The main limitation of this type of transplants as it can be done only if the organ can be spared, as in the case of the kidney since there are two organs (one can live normally with only one kidney) or if the organ will regenerate, as in the case of bone marrow. In the case of partial liver transplants, this is possible since the liver is a large organ and transplantation of a segment of the liver (e.g. from a parent to a child) is possible because the remaining liver is sufficient to maintain life.

• Cadaveric transplants

The organs are donated from persons who have been declared clinically dead (i.e. brain stem death has occured and death of other organs in the body is inevitable) Such transplants conducted in Malaysia include:

- kidney transplants

- corneal transplants

- heart transplants

Unfortunately cadaveric donation has not been commonly done in Malaysia stemming largely from cultural taboos and mistaken belief that it is forbidden due to religious reasons (it is in fact permitted under the major religions in Malaysia). Such barriers are being slowly overcome with increasing public awareness and education.