Organ Donation & Transplantation from deceased donors in India - An Overview

Abstract

Transplantation over the past few decades has gradually become the accepted treatment for a number of conditions where organs like the kidneys, heart, lungs and liver have irreversibly failed. For a patient with kidney failure an alternative such as dialysis is available till an organ becomes available, but for a patient with liver, heart or lung failure the only hope of living may be to have an immediate transplant. Are we doing enough to help these critically ill patients whose numbers are constantly on the increase? What is the current status of different transplants in India and what are we doing to help these patients?

In 2013, the national deceased donation rate was 0.26 per million population per year (313 donors) compared to 0.16 per million population in 2012.

Tamil Nadu leads the way in deceased organ donation. It had 131 deceased donors in 2013 and a total of 571 deceased donors from October 2008 till 31st December 2014. As a result 3138 organs and tissues have been transplanted in the state.

From 2000 to 2009, MOHAN Foundation, a registered not-for-profit organization, was responsible for initiating an organ sharing network (waiting list registry) in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Through this initiative 1033 organs and tissues were retrieved.

This web-based recipient waiting list registry has been adopted by Tamil Nadu (www.tnos.org) and Kerala (www.knos.org) and more recently by Rajasthan (www.mos.org).