Regional variation in organ donation in Saudi Arabia

Cadaveric organ donation started in 1986, out of 8820 cases reported, 4661 cases documented, and 1384 donors harvested since the program inception until the end of 2011, with conversion rate of 29.7%. There is marked regional variation in organ donation among different region of Saudi Arabia. Our aim is to study the reasons for this variation in order to improve organ donation in areas of low donation rate. There is marked variation with regards of contribution to organ donation in different regions in Saudi Arabia from 2% in the southern area to 76.5% in central area. This is related to the presence of active mobile donor team in the central region. A similar trend towards increasing number of cases and conversion rate was observed in the eastern region after having a new mobile donor team. We suggest that having active well trained mobile donor team in each region will increase the number of cadaveric donor at least 3 folds in the next 3-5 years.