Biobank concept in Poland.

Possible adverse events and reactions associated with organ procurement and transplantation from deceased donors require compliance with quality and safety standards. Shortage of organs for transplantation makes it necessary to obtain organs from nonstandard (expanded-criteria) donors. This increases the risk of disease transmission with the graft which is difficult or impossible to identify before transplantation. The long-term access to biologic material of organ donors and recipients proffers the possibility to evaluate serious adverse reactions as well as to improve the quality and safety in transplantation medicine. Implementation of the above-mentioned tasks requires a Biobank whose aims are: to gather and long-term storage sera, lymph nodes, and other tissues of deceased organ donors for analysis of their biologic properties; to gather and store organ recipient sera; to determine methods to store biologic material in a manner enabling identification of the donor, organ, and recipients; and to provide electronic record keeping. Tactical tasks of a Biobank are: to carry out new or verify results of previously performed testing of deceased donors and recipients as controls to evaluate transmission of infection; to perform genetic material testing (NAT) to verify and confirm serologic tests, eg, determination of HIV RNA/DNA in donors at risk of infections; to discover rare diseases in donors and recipients whose detection before transplantation is difficult because of the time constraints related to organ storage or the lack of available methods (eg, sponge encephalopathies); to perform biochemical or genetic tests to evaluate neoplasia transfer from donor to recipient; and to reexamine HLA typing in cases of immunologic complications.