Exchange of organs and patients with foreign nations during the first 15 months of activity of the Italian gate to Europe

The Italian Gate to Europe (IGE) was established in April 2005 to supply a single national coordinating center for the exchange of organs and patients with the rest of Europe. When an organ is offered from Italy, the IGE ascribes it to the first foreign organization that accepts it on a first-come, first-served basis. In the case of offers from abroad, the IGE allocates the organ to one of the three Italian Interregional Centres in rotation. On the basis of international agreements, the IGE also manages the transfer of foreign patients to Italian transplant centers. The first 15 months of activity have been compared with the previous period of the same length. The IGE managed 353 contacts. 53 organs were transplanted in Italy versus 19 in the previous period. Seven foreign patients received liver transplantations in Italy. The increase in imported organs could be a function of IGE creation, since it allowed a reduced response time to offers and guaranteed the participation of all Italian centers in the program of international exchanges with a subsequent increase in the pool of recipients and equitable distribution of transplanted organs. The drop in the number of exported organs was a probable a consequence of increased acceptance criteria of Italian centers. The mentioned international agreements have allowed us to better meet the health care needs of foreign citizens who live in countries with low per-million-population donation rates with no detriment to the probability of Italian citizens being transplanted.