The Implementation of Postmortal Tissue Donation under the General Conditions of the

Background: The new tissue law initiated by the European Union has been discussed controversially in Germany up to now. Due to this situation pharmaceutical industry on one side and medical professionals on the other side do not exactly know what kind of regulations would have to be fulfilled in order to follow the law. From health government’s side the suggestion includes the aspect that the tissue law can not be part of the German transplant law (TPG = Transplantationsgesetz) which covers organ donation, allocation and transplantation because tissue in Germany should belong to the regulation of the medication law (AMG = Arzneimittelgesetz). The German medical council prognosticates tremendous cost effects for hospitals and the health system if the tissue law belongs to the AMG. Due to these circumstances an implementation model of tissue donation has been established at the Institute of legal Medicine (IfR) at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf. Method: In cooperation between the German Institute of Cell and Tissue Replacement (DIZG) and the IfR Hamburg a new project has been developed that allows to evaluate deceased regarding to specific medical criteria for postmortal tissue donation. Results: Due to these evaluation criteria 13% of the corpses who belong to the potential tissue donor group have been used for tissue retrieval. The tissue has been delivered for former processing to the DIZG and has been offered afterwards again to hospitals. Discussion: The necessity of transplantable human tissue has an increasing impact within Germany. Presently because of tissue shortage cornea, heart valves, bone chips have to be imported from the US, Great Britain and France in order to cover the need. Aim of the Hamburg project is to implement postmortal tissue procurement without any conflict of interest between organ- and tissue donation.