The regional disparity in transplant activity is a huge problem in Brazil and in other countries. Brazilian transplant centers are concentrated in the coastal states, while there is a lack of transplant programs in the Midwest, northern and part of northeastern areas.

From 2010 to 2015, our group started the project TRANSPLANTS WITHOUT BORDERS(TWB), in which an experienced team in liver, pancreas and kidney transplants goes to the target state and develops a new transplant program by in locus training human resources and the Institution. The training begins with workshops and, after a period of 3 to 6 months with local meetings and the organization of the local team with the involved physicians, transplants are started.

During this period, there were 299 transplants in six different states of the Midwest, North and Northeast of Brazil, including 124 liver and 175 kidney. Patient and graft survival was over 90% in all programs initiated in these states, demonstrating that it is possible, with an in locus tutoring of an experienced team, skip the learning curve and achieve excellent results since the beginning.

The traveling tutor team from TWB covered a 2.600.000km2 area of ​​the country for training of distant centers, area comparable to the ​​western europe or the sun belt region in the US.

TWB proved to be very efficient and a low-cost model project, able to develop new transplant centers in areas deprived of this resource in a short term and with excellent results from the beginning.

CITATION INFORMATION: Perosa M, Branez J, Mota L, Zeballos B, Noujaim H, Ianhez L, Alvim L, Machado D, Moreno M, Genzini T, Kandaswamy R. Transplants without Borders – A Project for In Locus Training of New Transplants Centers in Brazil. Am J Transplant. 2016;16 (suppl 3).

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