In a world in which bad news prevails, today the general trend is broken. Spain is a country of solidarity, despite the negative voices that prevail everywhere, and it is with the most sacred thing, life. And if not, read these data: last year 2,346 people donated their organs after dying and 435 people gave a kidney or part of their liver while alive. These data represent a growth of 9% in transplantation and 7% in donation compared to 2022. Furthermore, the transplant rate exceeds the historical maximum recorded in 2019 by 8%, before the covid pandemic. The average number of daily donors last year was 8 and the average number of transplants performed each day was 16.
This is clear from the balance sheet just presented by the Minister of Health, Mónica García, and the general director of the National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, which reveals that the activity of organ donation and transplantation in Spain In 2023, it reached levels of excellence that are difficult to surpass: 5,861 organ transplants were performed, which represents a rate of 122.1 transplants per million population (p.m.p.).
Regarding the profile of the potential organ donor in our country, it remains similar to that of previous years. Donors who died due to traffic accidents only represented 4.7% of the total. The main cause of death of donors was stroke.
In terms of age, more than half of the donors (56.8%) were over 60 years old, 30% over 70 and 5% over 80. The oldest donor recorded in 2023 was 92 years old.
Despite these figures and the high transplant activity in Spain, a significant number of patients remain on the waiting list. As of December 31, 2023, the waiting list stood at 4,790 patients. Of them, 75 were children. This number of patients on the waiting list is similar to that registered in 2022 (4,746 patients).
Since 2021, the generosity of donors has been added to that of those people who request assistance in dying and express their willingness to be donors: 90 people have been donors after dying in these circumstances and have made the transplant of 249 patients possible. since the law that regulates said benefit came into force until December 2023.
Last year, growth was across the board across all types of transplants. 3,688 kidney transplants were performed (8% more than the previous year), 1,262 liver transplants (9% more), 479 lung transplants (15%), 325 heart transplants (5%), 100 pancreas transplants (9%) and 7 intestinal transplants (75%). %).
With a total of 433 procedures, living donor kidney transplant activity increased by 24% and represented 12% of the total kidney transplants performed. In addition to the historical record represented by the total number of transplants, the figures for kidney transplants (both from living donors and deceased donors), liver and lung transplants also exceed any recorded figure.
The rate of 48.9 deceased donors p.m.p. that Spain reached last year is close to the objective of 50 donors p.m.p set by the ONT in its “50X22” Strategic Plan and the figure of 2,346 donors represents another historical maximum.
The minister thanked “the solidarity of the donors and their families, as well as the essential work of the professionals who participate in all phases of the complex donation and transplant process and the coordination of the ONT and the autonomous communities, an example social and health cohesion, a perfectly articulated network that saves thousands of lives every year, as reflected in the data we present today.”
This activity is much higher than that achieved by the rest of the countries in the world, according to data from the Global Observatory of Donation and Transplantation, managed by the ONT as a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization. In 2022, the United States registered 44.5 donors p.m.p, France 25.8, Italy 25.0, Canada 21.4, the United Kingdom 20.6, Australia 17.4, Germany 10.4 and the European Union as a whole 20.9 donors p.m.p.
The general director of the ONT has insisted on “the impeccable work of all the coordination and transplant teams and the regional transplant coordination that, together with the ONT, continue to identify new growth paths to continue improving these figures and that the complex transplant therapy reaches all patients who need it.” Precisely the lines established by the aforementioned strategy, which seeks to reach 50 donors p.m.p. and reach 5,500 annual transplants, “they have already allowed us to easily surpass this last figure in 2023.”
Ten autonomous communities exceeded 50 donors p.m.p and 3 of them exceeded 70 donors p.m.p. last year. Cantabria once again led the ranking, with a rate of 74.1 donors p.m.p, followed by Navarra (71.6) and Murcia (71.0).
Of the autonomous communities with populations greater than five million inhabitants, the activity recorded in the Valencian Community (52.6) and Andalusia (51.5) stands out.
The autonomous communities that grew the most in donation were, in this order, Murcia (49%), Madrid (24%) and Castilla la Mancha (22%). Madrid is, however, one of the communities with the lowest donation rate in Spain (38.1 p.m.p), partly, as explained by the head of the ONT, because of its younger population. Catalunya is in the Spanish average, with 48.6 p.m.p.
The ONT estimates that 1,304 transplants were carried out thanks to the exchange of organs between autonomous communities, which represents 23% of the total. In turn, 7% of recipients have been transplanted in a center outside their community of residence. Both data demonstrate the cohesive role of the Spanish Transplant System.
