[The national program of pediatric transplantation]

The national programme for paediatric transplants currently implemented at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità is one of the first results of the efforts devoted to the definition of an efficient co-ordination policy of the transplantation activity in Italy. Since 1997 the programme has allowed all transplant centres throughout Italy to share unified waiting lists for kidney, heart, lung and liver, which gives paediatric patients a much better possibility than with local waiting lists. We present the regulations, criteria and operative solutions adopted to make the programme work, and the analysis of the data collected in these three years. The analysis gives statistical information on the composition and evolution of waiting lists and transplants done, which may be useful in the continuous process of revision and improvement of the criteria for recipient selection.