Organ transplants in Latin America

Latin America has carried out kidney transplantation for 45 years. Twenty-four countries perform kidney transplantations, 14 perform heart transplantations, 12 perform liver transplantations, 9 perform pancreas transplantations, and, 2 perform small bowel transplantations. Seventeen countries have nephrology societies, 10 have transplantation societies, and 10 have national transplant organizations. The potential donor rate, 40 to 100 per million population per year (pmp/y), is similar to that observed in developed countries, but the rate of potential notified donors is 5 to 25 pmp/y, and the rate of effective donors is lower, 2 to 12 pmp/y. Approximately 77,000 transplantations were performed in the region until 2001, 70,000 kidney transplantations, 4000 liver transplantations, and 2500 heart transplantations. The annual number of kidney transplantations in Latin America increased from less than 3000 in 1991 to almost 7000 in 2001. Latin America, with only 8.5% of the world population, performed 12.7% of the kidney transplantations. Future strategies to improve the transplantation situation in Latin America include the following: obtain financial coverage for all the population, establish a National Transplant Organization and registries with transplantation results, and improve cadaveric and living donation to 10 pmp/y each.