[Organ donation for transplant: a human response to death]

Dialysis instead of kidney transplantation remains the available treatment for most of the uremic Brazilian population. The low percentage of transplants of cadaver donors (20%) that occurs in Brazil is insufficient to prevent the progressive accumulation in the number of individuals requiring transplants. Our investigation shows that 86.6% of the people of Londrina know the importance of organ donation but actually only 36.4% would sign a donor card. Most of them mentioned not being fully acquainted with the matter, a fact to suggest we should increase our efforts at extending to the population further knowledge on death and dying.