Reference centers for tissue and body donations: Compulsory requirements in Italy

Abstract

Recent Italian legislation (Law No. 10/2020) establishes the legal, ethical and technical requirements governing how individuals can donate their bodies or tissues post‐mortem for study, training, and scientific research purposes. A ministerial working group has recently approved some of the law's implementing rules relating to technical issues. The rules for implementing the new legislation, retrieved from the legal databases and translated into English, are discussed. For the first time in Italy, the law establishes compulsory requirements and minimum characteristics—in terms of logistics, safety, availability of staff, space, and equipment—for institutions to be recognized as reference centers for the conservation and use of bodies and tissues donated post‐mortem for study, training and scientific research purposes. This makes it possible to standardize the features of such reference centers nationwide, and to coordinate their activities and potential future development, while ensuring basic operational efficiency and workplace safety, the provision of adequate facilities, buildings and equipment, and staff training. The law and its implementing rules discussed here are the first to establish criteria and compulsory requirements for centers receiving body and tissue donations in Italy. This is a step forward for the whole anatomy community, providing practical guidelines for body donation programs and related facilities in other countries too.

Global legislation regulating the donation, procurement and distribution processes of organs and tissues from deceased donors for transplants: A scoping review

“…This problem has been highlighted in Italy due to the recent introduction of the law on the donation of whole bodies, organs and tissues for the purposes of teaching, scientific research and training [ 104 ]. Anatomists argue that priority should be given to the removal of organs and tissues for donation to living people waiting on the waiting list for a transplant and only after that should consideration be given to making the body available for teaching, research and training.…”