A Summary of Transplantation Activity in Hungary Balázs Nemes a, *, Edit Szederkényi b , Károly Kalmár Nagy c , István Hartyánszky d , László Ablonczy e , Ferenc Rényi Vámos f , Sándor Mihály g , and Zoltán Máthé h a Division of Organ Transplantation, Institute of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary; b Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary; c Department of Surgery, University of Pecs Medical School, Pecs, Hungary; d Heart and Vascular Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; e Pediatric Heart Centre, Gottsegen György National Institute of Cardiology, Budapest, Hungary; f Department of Thoracic Surgery, National Institute of Oncology-Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; g National Blood Service, Budapest, Hungary; and h Department of Transplantation and Surgery, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary ABSTRACT The first kidney transplantation was performed in Hungary by András Németh in 1962. It was a living donor procedure. After many years of silence, organized cadaveric programs were established in Budapest (1973), Szeged (1979), Debrecen (1991), and Pécs (1993). The heart program was initiated by Professor Zoltán Szabó in 1992 and the liver transplant program by Professor Ferenc Perner in 1993. The pancreas transplantation program was started in Pécs in 1998 by Károly Kalmár-Nagy, followed another in Budapest by Robert Langer in 2004. The lung transplant program was started in cooperation with Vienna in 1996. This fruitful collaboration continues today, even though that the national Hungarian program was established by Ferenc Rényi-Vámos and Professor György Lang in 2015, as it is detailed in this special issue. As a framework, the Hungarian Society of Organ Trans- plantation was founded in 1997 to give a scientific background for the transplant pro- fessionals. The coordination and organ allocation from deceased donors is carried out in collaboration with Eurotransplant. Usually more than 200 potential cadaveric donors are reported yearly, and 168 actual donation after brain death (DBD) donors (17.17 pmp) were utilized in 2018. The multiorgan donor rate was 65.5% among all DBDs in 2018; 505 or- gans were donated for transplant purposes. To date, more than 10,000 organ transplantations have been performed. The living related kidney transplant program was established in all transplant centers, led by Budapest. In this paper the authors summarize the activity of the Hungarian transplant community and of the Society over the last few decades. T RANSPLANTATION is a routine procedure for the management of end-stage diseases affecting many organs. The Hungarian story started in 1962, when András Németh performed the first living related kidney trans- plantation in Szeged, Hungary. In accordance with the current political background of the country, it was a difficult time for a breakthrough with such a complex program as organ transplantation. After 10 years of silence, the dawn of organ transplantation came with the establishment of the kidney transplant program in Budapest, in 1973, together with the professional consensus on the legal definition of brain death. It was followed by the other university centers, Szeged (1979), Debrecen (1991), and Pécs (1993). Transplant professionals then decided to create their own scientific community and announced the foundation of the Hungarian Transplant Society in 1997. The Society orga- nizes a national congress every year. Looking back over the last 2 decades and 10 congresses, one can clearly see that the first steps were the development of the heart (1992), *Address correspondence to Balázs Nemes, MD, PhD, Division of Organ Transplantation, Institute of Surgery, Faculty of Medi- cine, University of Debrecen, Móricz Zs. krt.22 4032 Debrecen, Hungary. Tel: þ36-30-983-4764; Fax: þ36-52-255-544. E-mail: nemes.balazs@med.unideb.hu 0041-1345/19 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.transproceed.2019.04.006 ª 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 230 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10169 1202 Transplantation Proceedings, 51, 1202e1208 (2019)