Improving self-sufficiency in organ transplantation in Korea

Abstract

After attaining a qualified medical capacity in organ transplantation, Korea has been struggling to increase the number of deceased organ transplants to reach self-sufficiency. As one of these efforts, Korea revised the organ transplantation law in 2010 by adding three articles the mandatory reporting based on the recommendation of the 3rd Global Consultation on Organ Transplantation of Madrid in 2010. Along with the new constitution, considerable efforts have been initiated to upgrade the deceased organ transplantation system while maintaining the virtues of fairness, justice, and transparency. The Korean Society of Transplantation played a critical role in revising the law as well as in establishing organizations such as the Korean Organ Donation Agency (KODA; 2009), the Vitallink (2009), and the Korean Organ Transplantation Registry (KOTRY; 2010). By the activities of these professional organizations, Korea could implement fundamental programs such as mandatory reporting and could develop various education programs for organ donation for students and the general population. As a result, the number of deceased donors increased from 1.08 p.m.p. (2000) to 9.23 p.m.p.(2020). Further efforts are needed to increase the number of organ donor cardholders and family consent rates by well-designed, target-specific education programs to overcome traditional negative cultural barriers toward organ donation. The community atmosphere of honoring and thanking donors and their families should be nurtured by national and regional activities of life-sharing weeks linked with organ donor memorial parks.

Keywords: Deceased organ transplantation; Korean organ transplantation; Organ donation; Self-sufficiency.

Fig. 1

Number of overseas transplantation (OT) cases and deceased donors (DDs). IOPO, independent organ procurement organization; KODA, Korean Organ Donation Agency; KOTRY, Korean Organ Transplantation Registry; DOI, Declaration of Istanbul. Modified from Ahn HJ, et al. [8].

Fig. 2

Structure and function of the Korean organ transplantation organizations. OPO, organ procurement organization; NGO, non-governmental organization; KST, Korean Society of Transplantation, QoL, quality of life; KODA, Korean Organ Donation Agency; KONOS, Korean Network for Organ Sharing; KOTRY, Korean Organ Transplantation Registry.