In contrast to the continuously increasing success in kidney, liver, heart, and pancreas transplantation, small-bowel transplantation has not shown simi larly impressive progress until recently. The few clinical attempts at small-intestinal transplantation in the late 1960s and early 1970s were unsuccessful. In spite of these initial failures, a few groups of surgeons continued to investigate the problems of small-bowel transplantation from the technical, functional, and immunologic point of view. Now, about 15 years later, conditions have changed. Total parenteral nutrition has made tremendous progress, thus maintaining patients with short-bowel syndrome who are potential recipients of small-bowel grafts in an acceptable physical condition. Immunologists and clinicians have furt hermore been able to expand our knowledge of basic immunologic reactions induced by transplanted organs. In addition, within the last 8 years, new immunosuppressive drugs and regimens have been introduced which have proved to be extremely effective. Taking all these aspects into account, we regarded it as an extremely worthwhile and effective undertaking to invite scientists from all over the world who are working in the field of small-bowel transplantation to participate in a symposium on this topic. This meeting, the first to deal exclusively with small-bowel transplantation, was held in Kiel, West Ger many, in October 1985. Its aims were twofold: 1. ) To'stimulate direct communication between basic scientists and clini cians 2."

Preclinical experimental transplantation research that is based on microsurgical models in rats fulfills two indispensable conditions for modern organ transplanta tion research: Almost all organ grafts can be performed on the rat with an amount of technical effort that is still justifiable. Thus transplantation models that are analogous to human organ transplantation can be developed, tested, and evaluated. This fulfills a necessary condition from the standpoint of surgery. With the species rat, we have a great variety of genetically different inbred strains. From the immunological point of view this is an indispensable prerequisite for the investigation of preclinical transplantation models that can be expected to produce controllable, reproducible results. In vivo experimental results can be supplemented by and correlated to in vitro tests. Lately these experimental results are being greatly expanded and more precisely defined by the application of immunohistological methods that have been established recently in Kiel. In this book we hope to present a cross section of the microsurgical models in use today and of current immunological and immunohistological models. Furthermore, we wish to record the present state of microsurgical organ transplantation research and to show its relationship to the current state and development of clinical organ transplantation. A special aspect of our Kiel research group is the long-term, well-functioning, interdisciplinary cooperation between surgery, immunology, and pathology. Through this cooperation we attempt to provide an atmosphere in which theoretical and practical viewpoints can mutually influence each other."

Ebenso wie die Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Chirurgie jahrlich Rechenschaft uber die Entwicklung der chirurgischen Disziplinen ablegt, so ist das Chirurgische Forum als fester Bestandteil der Tagung zum traditionellen Austragungsort wissenschaftlicher Auseinandersetzung in der klinischen und experimentellen chirurgischen Forschung geworden. Die Schwerpunktthemen behandeln die chirurgische Onkologie, Endokrinologie, Transplantationen, perioperative Pathophysiologie, die Chirurgie von Magen, Darm, Leber, Galle, Pankreas, Herz, Lunge und Gefasse, sowie die Traumatologie."