Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Organ transplants in Italy - Statistics & Facts
Since the first successful human kidney transplant in the U.S. in 1954, transplantations of other human organs, such as the liver, heart, and pancreas, were also performed successfully, and nowadays organ transplantation is an established practice worldwide. The kidney is the most frequently transplanted organ worldwide, in the EU, as well as in Italy, where 2,245 kidney transplants were executed in 2023. The second most performed transplantation is the liver, followed by heart, lung, and pancreas transplants. In 2020, in Italy, the first European lung transplant was performed on a patient affected by COVID-19. During the same year, the first uterus transplant was also accomplished in the country.
Donations and transplants in Italy
Since 2000, Italy has experienced an overall increase in the number of organ transplants, going from 2,386 transplantations to 4,462 in 2023. Two types of organ donations are available: from a deceased donor or a living donor. Most of the transplants are from deceased donors. As a matter of fact, among the number of donors in Italy, which increased from 1,105 in 2002 to 2,042 in 2023, roughly one-fifth were living donors. In the case of kidney transplantation in Italy, the number of living donors was 335, compared to 1,910 deceased ones. Tuscany was the region with the highest number of organ donors per million inhabitants in 2023. Tissue donation is as important as organ donation, as it can benefit patients with severe or life-threatening conditions. Among tissue donations in Italy, the cornea was the most donated tissue, followed by musculoskeletal tissue and skin, in 2023.Waiting lists
Demand for organ transplantation always exceeds the availability of organs, resulting in long waiting lists. The number of people waiting for a kidney transplant in Italy decreased every year in the last five years and, as of October 31, 2023, they amounted to 5,870. Time is a key factor when a patient requires a new organ, therefore, in the worst-case scenario, some patients might die waiting for a transplant. In Italy, it was the case for 178 patients on the waiting list for a kidney transplant and 133 on the waiting list for a liver transplant, in 2022.
