New data shows that 827 people donated their organs in Canada in 2022 — the highest number of deceased donors in a decade and a 50% increase since 2013. Living donor volumes in 2022 were still approaching pre-pandemic levels (576 in 2022 compared with 614 in 2019), showing an increase of 18% since 2020 but a slight decrease of 3% since 2021. These donations enable life-changing or life-saving transplants for others on Canada’s organ donation wait-lists.
Total organ donations in 2022 were approaching pre-pandemic levels — there were 1,403 donations in 2022 compared with 1,434 in 2019. This represents a 5% increase compared with 2021 and a 15% increase compared with 2020, the first year of the pandemic. This new data and more were released today in the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s annual statistics on organ replacement in Canada.
As with donations, solid organ transplants in Canada also approached 2019 pre-pandemic volumes in 2022. With 2,886 transplants performed in Canada in 2022, there was an 11% increase from 2020. This was primarily due to an increase in kidney transplants, which have nearly fully recovered to pre-pandemic volumes (1,678 in 2022 compared with 1,688 in 2019). The most recent graft survival data indicates that at 5 years post-transplant, 89% of kidneys transplanted from living donors and 79% of those from deceased donors are functioning effectively.
Wait times for a deceased donor kidney among adult dialysis patients showed a substantial improvement of 17% between 2013 and 2022 (from a median duration of 1,494 days to 1,247 days). While living donor wait times increased by 9% over the last decade (from 339 days in 2013 to 371 days in 2022), they remained substantially shorter than deceased donor wait times.
Despite improvements in donation and transplantation since the onset of the pandemic, 3,777 Canadians were waiting for a solid organ transplant as of December 31, 2022: 73% were waiting for a kidney, 13% for a liver, 6% for a lung, 3% for a heart, 3% for a pancreas and 2% for a combination of organs.
“As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have witnessed great resilience in the organ donation and transplantation community, with record improvements in waiting times for deceased donor transplantation driven by the life-saving generosity of deceased organ donors across Canada. While we are grateful for the progress made on this front, we have also seen a stagnation in living organ donation that warrants a renewed commitment to advance initiatives to support living donor transplantation across Canada.”— Dr. Jagbir Gill, Medical Director, Kidney Transplant Program, St. Paul’s Hospital; President, Canadian Society of Transplantation
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