The World Transplant Registry, which manages the Spanish ONT, says 118,117 transplants were performed worldwide in 2014 - an increase of 3%

In spite of this slight increase, both the WHO and the ONT estimate that these figures represent a mere 12% of the worldwide need for transplants.

These are data contained in the official publication by the CoE Committee on Organ Transplantation ("Newsletter Transplant 2015"), which will shortly be available on the ONT website (www.ont.es).

Published by the ONT, "Newsletter Transplant" is one of the main sources of official information in the world reflecting international data on organ donation and transplant (112 countries).

Spain, with 1,682 donors and 4,360 transplants in 2014, once again confirms its global leadership in this field with a rate of 36 donors pmp. This figure is considerably higher than the EU and US averages.

The World Registry data reflect Spain's leading position in this regard: with only 0.7% of the global population, Spain completed 17% of all organ donations in the European Union last year and 6% of all those recorded worldwide.

Historical analysis of these data also shows a slow but steady increase in transplants around the world. Over the last five years, the total number of recorded transplants has increased by 13.5% (2010-2014), with year-on-year growth of 2.7%.

European Union

In Europe, the figures on donation and transplantation remained stable when compared with those from 2013. In 2014, the organ donor rate in the 28 countries forming the EU rose slightly to 19.6 donors per million population (19.5 in 2013), with a total of 10,033 donations (9,637 in 2013). However, these figures are heavily affected by the ongoing fall in donation in Germany over recent years, offset by the increase in other, smaller countries. Of the EU total, approximately 10% were non heart-beating donors (death following irreversible cardiorespiratory arrest) - a slightly lower percentage than that recorded in Spain for this type of donation (11.5%).

The total number of transplants rose by 2.3% to a total of 31,881, slightly higher than last year (31,165 in 2013).

As regards the waiting list, the data from the World Transplant Registry put the number of European patients waiting for a transplant at 31 December 2014 at 56,116. These same data estimate that 3,799 people died over the course of the year while waiting for a transplant.
The ONT trusts in the recommendations made by the European ACCORD programme (Achieving Comprehensive Coordination in Organ Donation) to increase the number of transplants in the EU over the next few years. The ACCORD programme, which has been led by Spain, seeks to increase organ availability by strengthening the role played by intensive care specialists and emergency rooms in the identification of possible donors, in accordance with the 'Spanish Model'.

Since 2010, the organ donor rate has improved in 21 countries in the EU and the number of donors in absolute terms has increased by almost 8%. Even so, the ACCORD programme has highlighted the significant room for improvement that exists in Europe by demonstrating that only 23% of possible donors eventually undergo the donation process.

The ONT is also insisting on the development of donation from non heart-beating donors throughout the European Union, a procedure that has consolidated itself in Spain as the fastest-growing method of deceased organ donation. At the present time, donation from non heart-beating donors in the EU accounts for 10% of all donations, while it accounted for 11.5% of the total in Spain in 2014 and 17% of the Spanish total in the first half of 2015.

Organ donor rates in other countries

The CoE publication includes data from a total of 112 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia and Latin America. In the United States, the organ donor rate has remained stable in recent years - varying between 25 and 26 donors pmp (26.6 in 2014 with a total of 8,596 donors). The organ donor rate in Canada increased slightly to 16.5 pmp, while it stabilised around 16 donors pmp in Australia.

In turn, Russia posted a slight upturn in its organ donor rate with 3.3 donors pmp compared to the figure of 2.9 last year.

Ibero-America

Ibero-America, where Spain has been developing the Transplant Professional Cooperation and Training Alliance programme for 11 years, posted a rate of 8 donors pmp (enabling a total of 15,316 transplants). This is a slight increase on last year. Since Spain began to cooperate in this regard in the region, total growth now stands at 56%. This is the largest growth figure worldwide for a region as a whole.

Transplants in Spain

The data from the World Transplant Registry once again confirm Spain's leadership in this field, which posted a rate of 36 donors pmp last year. A total of 1,682 organ donors and a total of 4,360 transplants were recorded in Spain.

In total, 2,678 kidney transplants, 1,068 liver transplants, 265 heart transplants, 262 lung transplants, 81 pancreas transplants and 6 intestinal transplants were performed.

Together with donation from non heart-beating donors, living kidney donation is another of the clearest growth areas in terms of the number of donors. Living kidney donation now accounts for 15.8% of all kidney transplants in Spain.

All these figures support the fact that Spanish citizens needing a transplant have the highest likelihood from anywhere in the world of receiving this type of treatment.