title: Allocation of resources for organ transplantation.
abstract: Over the last 6 decades, organ transplantation has achieved great success to become standard therapy for the treatment of patients with end-stage organ failure. With this success has emerged candidate wait lists that greatly outnumber the current supply of deceased donor organs. The increasing number of candidates and transplants performed has resulted in an organ allocation process that occurs at a local, regional, and sometimes national level. A brief description of the history is presented as well as the methodologies involved in allocation of a donor organ to a single recipient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Praveen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kandula
authors.forename: T Anthony
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Parsia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Vagefi
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D016377:Organ Transplantation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D040841:Resource Allocation; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement / Q000458:organization & administration
keywords: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network; Organ allocation; Organ transplantation; United Network for Organ Sharing; Wait list