Networks of exchange: East German kidney transplantation in European context, 1965–1990

TL;DR

This paper explores how East Germany participated in international kidney transplant networks during the Cold War, highlighting collaboration across political blocs.

Contribution

It reveals the GDR's role in transnational organ exchange and knowledge sharing in kidney transplantation.

Findings

East Germany engaged in international kidney transplant networks through shared patient databases and cross-border collaborations.

The GDR's participation depended on both intra-bloc and trans-bloc exchanges for successful kidney transplants.

The study shows how socialist countries contributed to and benefited from global transplant practices during the Cold War.

Abstract

When kidney transplantation evolved from an experimental into a clinical treatment of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the 1960s, it was conceptualised as a collaborative therapy. Before specific immunosuppressants were introduced in the 1980s, the best chances for patient and graft survival were expected from finding ‘good’ matches between donor and recipient tissues. Therefore, the pioneers of clinical transplantation in Europe started to recombine their growing patient pools. They created trans-border organ exchange organisations such as Eurotransplant and Intertransplant, based on shared patient databases.

The article traces international and transnational co-operation in kidney exchange using the example of state-socialist Germany. How did the German Democratic Republic (GDR) get involved with the interconnected networks of knowledge, data, and organ exchange in ESRD treatment? In what ways did the domestic system of kidney transplantation depend on intra- and trans-bloc exchange? How did the GDR profit, and what did it have to offer on an international scale, both in the First and the Second World? The article sheds light on the under-explored transplantation history of the socialist East and thereby investigates the possibilities and limits of trans-bloc collaboration in Cold War Europe.

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