[Meeting the demand for quality and safety checked corneal transplants. The role of corneal banks and health care organizations in Germany].

Only cornea banks with organ culture techniques provide the substantial length of time often required by safety and quality controls of corneal transplants. In Germany the annual need would be 4,500 transplants per year, for which 7,500 donor corneas must be primarily taken into culture. Meeting total demand should theoretically be easy as only 3,800 corneal donors are needed from a total of 860,000 deceased per year. Since consent is given in up to 50% if approached properly, shortage in donor corneas should not pose a problem. However, shortage still is the major problem because most cornea banks are still in the initial phase. This is because of the lack of direct refinancing by health care organizations. These organizations must be required to meet their legal responsibilities in this area.