Catalonia breaks all-time record with over 1,100 transplants in 2017

In 2017, Catalan hospitals conducted an all-time record 1,106 organ transplants. This sum beats its own numbers from 2016 by 8.8%, which in itself had surpassed those organ transplants from the previous year.  Last year consequently hit 146.5 of these operations per million people, one of the highest in the world. 

The transplants most commonly done are for the kidney, which grew by 10% to 780, followed by those of the liver, which in turn decreased by 4.19%, with 160 procedures. Those of the heart, lung, and pancreas come afterwards. The Vall d’Hebron Hospital is one of the centers where the majority of these procedures are carried out (271) followed by the Bellvitge Hospital (252) and Hospital Clínic (245). In Catalonia, 3 transplants are carried out each day, 2 for the kidney and one for a different organ.

Organ donors also rise

Another increase and record broken is that of organ donors, which factors as many as 333 for 2017. This represents 44.1 donors per million citizens, showing an increase of 5.7%. This growth also stems from donations after cardiac death, which then in fact counts for every one in three transplants. In the past, these numbers were negligible, explained director of the Catalan Transplant Organization (OCATT) Jaume Tort, who sees these 2017’s numbers as a very positive development.

Moreover, over the span of four years, the lack of consent to donate from families of the deceased have also gone down to 13%, 9 percentages lower than it was 10 years ago, in 2007. Tort stated that this is a “reflection of what society thinks,” adding that the fact that only 1 out of 10 families decides not to donate the organs of the deceased is another “extraordinary” piece of data with which to begin 2018.