ROME (ITALPRESS) – A record year for donations and transplants comes to a close: in 2024 there were 2,110 organ harvests and 4,692 surgeries, a 5.1 percent increase over the previous year. These are the highest volumes of activity ever in Italy. The data were presented at a press conference at the Ministry of Health. “After the excellent results of 2023, with great pleasure we can say that 2024 the national transplant network recorded the best performance ever achieved to date,” said Health Minister Orazio Schillaci. “The year just ended reached the highest figures ever in donation and transplantation rates, surpassing the already record numbers of 2023,” added the minister, who went on to emphasize that “these figures testify to the value, the level of our public SSN, of how we can have excellent performance for free. This is what we want to preserve and improve. Organ donation I think is a symptom of civilization, they have increased and I think we can do even more to increase them further and on this we are very happy with the work that is being done with the national transplant center and with the superior institute of health. “Organ donations increased by 2.7 percent compared to 2023, 3,192 were the reports of potential donors arrived from the resuscitation with an increase of 3.2 percent compared to the previous year. Gazie to these numbers it was possible to carry out as many as 4,692 transplants, 226 more than in 2023.The national donation rate rose to 30.2 donors per pump, the first time that Italy has exceeded 30, a level that places our country at the top of Europe for organ donation. The regions with the highest rate are confirmed to be Tuscany with 49, Emilia Romagna with 45.5 and Veneto with 44. To be recorded the growth of rates in the southern regions: Sicily + 5.7 percent, Campania +3.1 percent, Calabria +2.7 percent, a figure that highlights the first results of a process of narrowing the gap between North and South. “2024 was a year in which there was a further and global growth of the transplant network in continuity with what happened in 2023,” explained Giuseppe Feltrin, director general of the National Transplant Center. “We set new records: more than 200 more transplants than in the previous year, better positioning as a nation at the European level, and important growth in marrow donations and transplants as well,” he added.As for transplants, it was heart transplants, plus 13 percent, and kidney transplants plus 6.6 percent , that grew the most. Kidney transplants totaled 2,393, 149 more than last year, heart transplants 418 in 2023 there had been 370, liver transplants also increased 1,732, up 1.8 percent. Slightly down those of the lungs from 188 to 174 stable those of the pancreas 36. Overall, Italy rose in one year from 69.2 to 75.5 transplants per million people, the highest level ever, among regions it is Veneto that achieved the highest rate with 130.5 pmp transplants, followed by Piedmont 115.1, Friuli Venezia Giulia 104.3 and Emilia Romagna 100.1. Transplants also show an increase in the rates of southern regions: Sicily rose from 41.8 to 63.8 pmp transplants, plus 22 percent, and Puglia, plus 6.5 percent, Campania plus 5.8 percent and Calabria plus 1.7 percent.(ITALPRESS).-Photo: xc3/Italpress-
