[Allocation questions in transplantation medicine]

The German Transplantation Law and the guidelines for admission on the waiting list and for organ allocation published by the Bundesärztekammer (German Medical Association) considerably restricts the margins for decision and therefore results in equal opportunities, fairness of distribution and particularly transparency. The attempt of distributing the scanty resource "donor organ" fairly is endangered by a number of unforseen and complicated problems in spite of theoretically correct approaches. Individual, social and socio-political exceptions in organ allocation and conflicts between chances of success, urgency, and individual situation of the patient, e.g. in liver transplantation, are possible problems for the physician and the "system". Therefore, a continuing discussion of the conditions and aims in organ transplantation is extremely important to make useful and necessary corrections.