National donor registers. A worldwide survey.

Donor registers where individuals can register their attitudes on postmortem donation are now in operation in a large number of nations and states. Donor registers are being considered in some other states. It can be expected that there will be new registers. Information on existing registers will be needed to guide decision-makers. The term donor register will be used in this presentation in spite of the fact that it is a misnomer and may be misleading. There are registers where you can register as a donor; there are registers where you can indicate that you object to being a donor. Moreover there are combinations of the two types and besides, there are registers where you indicate that someone else has to approve of your decision or has to be consulted. Since donor registers are all different it is not within the scope of this paper to give detailed information on any one of them. Instead general information will be given on existing donor registers in various parts of the world. References will be given to evaluations and review papers. Suggestions will be given for a state of the art donor register and some questions with no obvious answers will be discussed.