Background and aim:

Cadaveric organ donation started in 1986, out of 8820 cases reported, 4661 cases documented, and 1384 donors harvested since the program inception until the end of 2011, with conversion rate of 29.7%. There is marked regional variation in organ donation among different region of Saudi Arabia. Our aim is to study the reasons for this variation in order to improve organ donation in areas of low donation rate.

Method:

Saudi Center for organ transplantation (SCOT) data for cadaveric organ donation from 2006-2011 detailing the number of cases reported, documented, consented and harvested, as well as the distribution by region (central 29.4% of the total population Saudi Arabia, western 32%, eastern 15%, northern 8%, southern 15.6%). The number of contributing ICU stratified by size of ICU and the region was also reviewed.

The overall donation rate as well as the percentage of harvested cases per region as well as the conversion rate (harvested/Documented) was reviewed.

Results:

Between 2006 -2011, 448 cases procured form Saudi Arabia, of which 343 where procured for central region representing 76.5% coming from 30 out of 97 contributing ICU's (31%), the eastern region came second with 49 cases (11%) followed by the western region with 35 cases (7.8%) while northern and southern region had 12 and 9 cases (2.7&2%) respectively.{figure1} The conversion rate followed a similar trend. This is related to the presence of active mobile donor team in Riyadh (the capital) as well as active transplant centers.

Conclusion:

There is marked variation with regards of contribution to organ donation in different regions in Saudi Arabia from 2% in the southern area to 76.5% in central area. This is related to the presence of active mobile donor team in the central region. A similar trend towards increasing number of cases and conversion rate was observed in the eastern region after having a new mobile donor team. We suggest that having active well trained mobile donor team in each region will increase the number of cadaveric donor at least 3 folds in the next 3-5 years.

cadaveric organ donation, regoinal variation, donor team