Scandiatransplant is a Nordic organ exchange organization and it covers a population of 24.5 million inhabitants in five countries, Denmark (5.4 million), Finland (5.2 million), Iceland (0.3 million), Norway (4.6 million), and Sweden (9.0 million).

Today, Scandiatransplant includes a cooperation of all 12 Nordic transplant centers in addition to eight immunology laboratories.

According to the by-laws, the purpose of the Scandiatransplant association is fourfold: (1) Scandiatransplant shall effect the exchange of organs and tissue between the participating transplant centers;

(2) It shall operate a database and communicate information from it;

(3) It shall contribute to promoting the provision of human organs and tissue for transplantation;

(4) It shall support scientific activities.

The members of the Scandiatransplant association are hospitals, each with an active program for organ transplantation. Iceland is now a fully member because they do kidney transplantations from living donors, having transplantations with organs from deceased organ donors done in one of the other Nordic countries.

The supreme authority is the Council of Representatives, where one or more professionals who must be clinically active in terms of organ transplantation represent each transplant center. The number of representatives from the individual centers depends on the number of transplants performed during the previous year. Ordinary questions such as financial subjects are decided upon by voting. By contrast, all decisions on medical issues must be taken unanimously by the Council. This includes decisions on the rules for organ exchange. The Council of Representatives has one yearly meeting. The Board has responsibility for the day-to-day operation of Scandiatransplant. The Board has one member appointed by each of the five Nordic countries in addition to one chairman who is elected by the Council of Representatives. The office of Scandiatransplant is located at the University Hospital Skejby in Aarhus, Denmark.

Scandiatransplant was founded in 1969 on the initiative of Nordic pioneers within the organ transplantation field. One of the pioneers was professor Flemming Kissmeyer Nielsen, Aarhus, and the office was placed in Aarhus, Denmark.

Although the by-laws state that tissue for transplantation can be a part of the activities of Scandiatransplant, this activity has not been included so far apart from pancreatic islet cells. Transplant centers in the Nordic countries have had a close collaboration during more than 35 years within the frame of Scandiatransplant. The economy is solely based on transplant center fees. All Nordic patients waiting for an organ transplant are registered on one common waiting list for each organ. More than 22,000 kidneys from deceased donors have been transplanted within the frame of Scandiatransplant since it was founded in 1969.

During the last years the organ being the most prominent exchanged organ between centers within Scandiatransplant is liver followed by heart. The overall exchange rate of kidneys has stabilized around 12% during the last years.

Scandiatransplant has a decentralized organization with a rather small central office keeping the database running, but depending on data input and use of the database at each transplant center within Scandiatransplant.

The number of performed kidney transplantation’s per year has stabilized around a little more than 900 per year for the whole Scandiatransplant including the approximately one third with kidneys from living donors.

For further information please look at the other entrances at this home page as for example the dias show for Scandiatransplant for the last year which will give the activities during that year.

- Revised July 2006 by Medical director Niels Grunnet