Organ Donation

Organ donation is the process by which a person authorizes an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted into another person, legally, either through consent given while the donor is alive, through a legal authorization for deceased donation made prior to death, or through authorization by the legal next of kin after death. Donation may be for research, or, more commonly, healthy transplantable organs and tissues may be donated for transplantation into another person; when the donor is still living this is called living organ donation, of which about 6,500 occur in the United States each year. Common transplantations include kidneys, heart, liver, pancreas, intestines, lungs, bones, bone marrow, skin, and corneas, and some organs and tissues, such as a kidney, part of the liver, part of the pancreas, part of the lungs, or part of the intestines, can be donated by living donors. In 2019 Spain had the highest donor rate in the world, followed by the United States, Croatia, Portugal, and France, though there remains a large gap worldwide between the number of registered donors and the number of people awaiting organ donations.