Global Perspective on Kidney Transplantation: Turkey
Oya Andaçoğlu, Fazıl Tuncay Aki
Abstract
The first renal transplant in Turkey was performed in 1968 at the Ista nbul University Medical School (1). However, the patient died due to ventricular fibrillation at the seventh postoperative hour (1). The first successful renal transplant in Turkey was performed at Hacettepe University by Dr. Mehmet Haberal and his colleagues in 1975, which involved a transplant from a mother to her child. This was followed by the first deceased-donor kidney transplantation in 1978, using an organ supplied by Eurotransplant (2). The law on harvesting, storage, and transplantation of organs and tissues was enacted in 1979; later that year, the first local deceased-donor kidney transplantation was performed by the same team. In 2001, the Turkish Ministry of Health established the National Coordination Center to promote transplantation activities and deceased-donor organ procurement ( 3). Currently, the Organ Transplantation Regulatory Unit is a subdivision of the Ministry of Health. From 2008 to 2020, a total of 33,028 renal transplants and 13,135 liver transplants have been performed, as compared with 728 heart transplants, 276 lung transplants, 65 pancreas transplants, according to the publicly available online registry of the Ministry of Health (4). Despite the large number of living-donor renal and liver transplants performed in Turkey, the number of heart, lung, pancreas, and intestinal operations and overall deceased-donor transplants are quite behind due to various factors, including low rates of deceased donation compared with Europe or the United States. According to the most recent reports from the International Organ Registry in Organ Donation and Transplantation, Turkey ranked first globally for the overall living-donor transplant rate (53.02 per million population [pmp]) and for living-donor renal transplant activity (36.64 pmp); however, Turkey was 42nd for overall deceased-donor transplant rates (at only 7.54 pmp), compared with the top three countries (Unites States, Spain and Portugal; 38.35, 37.40, …