Summary The number of potential organ donors depends on various factors, among which the number of deceased with primary or secondary brain damage is the most decisive. In the north‐east donor region of Germany with 7.69 million inhabitants, 2019 cases of deceased with primary or secondary brain damage were reported by 136 intensive care units during 2002–2005. In a study, 64% of these deceased were identified as potential donors. This represents 40.7 potential donors per million inhabitants. It can be concluded that in the other donor regions of Germany a comparable number of potential donors exists, yet not all possible donors are being detected and referred. The conversion rate (percentage of potential donors who become effective donors) in the years 2002–2005 was 47%. The main reason for the conversion rate being so low was the large number of relatives who declined an organ donation (73%). More than 90% of the relatives in the north‐east region did not know the deceased's will in the acute situation. From our point of view the high refusal rate can be decreased mainly by two measures: improvement of the family approach and integrating the topic of organ donation into schools’ curricula.

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We report a case of a de novo renal cell carcinoma in a transplanted kidney, which was detected 3 years after the transplantation. The tumor was excised under hypothermia and perfusion. Immunosuppression was not stopped and the function remained excellent. Close-mesh follow-up of 45 months showed no evidence of recurrence or metastasis.

Since there is no upper age limit for general organ donation, unlike heart valve donation, and since a quarter of all organ donors are 65 years and older, we examined whether the heart valves from these donors are suitable as allografts. In the period 1999-2004 the aortic valve and pulmonary valve of 100 organ donors above 65 years of age were examined to establish whether they would have been suitable as valve grafts. To compare the valve grafts above and below the age limit of 65 years, we used data on the aortic and pulmonary valves of 380 organ donors below the age limit in the same time period. Examination of the 200 heart valves showed that - just like valves from donors below the age limit - 100 of them would have met the medical quality standards for transplantation, which discriminate among optimal, suitable and unsuitable tissue morphology. The morphological suitability of the aortic valves decreases rapidly during the 4th decade of life and near to the age limit only 6% of them are accepted as grafts. The rate of potentially acceptable aortic valve grafts from organ donors aged over 65 years of 15% is also small. By contrast, the pulmonary valves are not affected by age-related tissue changes that might reduce their transplantability. The predominant majority (85%) of potential pulmonary valve grafts from organ donors over 65 years of age fulfilled the acceptance criteria, half of them (48%) even showing good tissue quality. In light of these results the age limit was raised to 70 years in 2005.