Scandinavian Transplantation Society

The scandia transplant society was founded in 1969 supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers as cooperation between a group of doctors (Nordic Expert Committee on Transplantation Matters) in the Nordic countries. The purpose was to facilitate the exchange of organs for transplantation between the countries so that retrieved organs could be given to the right patient. The main reasons for organ exchange within a system of cooperating transplant centers is to ensure that each donated organ is transplanted to the optimal recipient in terms of matching, and that patients in urgent need of an organ transplant have a realistic option of getting an organ offer. In order to facilitate these two requirements, a population size far greater than the individual Scandinavian countries is needed. By cooperating through the Scandia transplant system, the Nordic transplant centers can provide: Optimal matching with regards to tissue types (HLA matching) and other physical data (physical size, blood group) Urgent waiting list system .The Board of the association is responsible for the day-to-day operations. It consists of one person from each participating country plus a chairman. The office of the organization is placed at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark. The office maintains the Scandia transplant database and services the association and its users. It serve as a common organ exchange organisation and allocation resource for its member hospitals including kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas, pancreatic islet, cellular, intestinal and multivisceral transplantation. This is done transparently, using ethical principles and in full compliance with the national legislation of the members’ countries. The function of this society is to maintain and operate a common waiting list for transplantation, to ensure complete traceability from organ donors to patients, to maintain and operate follow-up registries of transplanted patients, to maintain and operate follow-up registries of living donors, to serve as a collaborative platform through specialized working groups and advisory groups in order to facilitate best practice recommendations and policies optimizing retrieval, allocation and transplantation of organs, and to form a collaborative network for the member hospitals to promote research and development related to organ donation, allocation and transplantation.