[Skip to Navigation]
Sign In
Viewpoint
November 2013

Regulatory Oversight in Transplantation: There and Back Again

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Surgery, Comprehensive Transplant Center, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
JAMA Surg. 2013;148(11):997-998. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2013.2762

In 1984 Congress responded to the rapid increase of organ transplantation in the United States by passing the National Organ Transplant Act, which addressed supply and demand issues through establishment of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR). Both fall under the Health Resources and Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).1 The mission of OPTN is to facilitate organ allocation, consensus-based policies, and data collection. The SRTR is charged with using data collected by the OPTN to conduct ongoing evaluation of transplantation. Creation of this public database also ensured that transplantation would be among the first specialties subjected to regulatory scrutiny and oversight.

Add or change institution
×