Iran is a vast country in the Middle East.

The renal transplant program in Iran is one of the successful programs in the region. In 1988, a controlled live unrelated renal transplant program was started in Iran because of a low numbers of live related donors and because cadaveric renal transplant program was not established completely at that time.

Finally, therenal transplant waiting list of the country was eliminated by the end of 1999.

Recently, in the annual report of NAPRTCS, 48.6% of all transplants were from deceased donor, 41.2% were from a parent, with the remaining 10.2% from other living donors.

In developing countries, the donor sources vary depending on cultural and ethical status.

In some countries, most transplants are from living related donors, such as Egypt and some Asian countries.

In contrast, in some other countries, the majority of transplants are from deceased donors such as South Africa, Thailand…