National Tissue Bank inaugurated to bridge demand-supply gap

New Delhi, Nov 22 :  The National Biomaterial Centre (National Tissue Bank), which aims to fill the gap between demand and supply of tissues, was inaugurated here by Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel on Wednesday.

The centre, situated at National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), will also provide quality assurance in the availability of various tissues.

According to the Health Ministry, the national level Tissue Bank will fulfill the demands of tissue transplantation including activities for procurement, storage and fulfill distribution of biomaterials. 

"The centre will take care of the tissue allografts that includes bone and bone products such as deep frozen bone allograft, freeze dried bone allograft, dowel allograft, AAA Bone, duramater, facialata fresh frozen human amniotic membrane, high temperature treated board cadaveric joints like knees, hips and shoulders, cadaveric cranium bone graft, loose bone fragment, different types of bovine allograft, used in orthodontics, skin graft, cornea, heart valves and vessels," said an official statement.

The Centre will also add other tissues gradually.

In her address at the inauguration, Patel called for more cadaver donations as currently the organ needs mostly relied on the living donors.

"It is important to understand that in India it is mainly the living donors who are donating organs and only about 23 per cent of the organ transplant is being done with organs obtained from the cadavers.

"There is a need to promote cadaver or deceased organ donation rather than relying on living donors in order to avoid the risk of commercial trading of organs and also to avoid the inherent risk to the health of the living donor," she said, as per the statement. 

The Health Ministry also said that among the activities of the National Tissue Bank will include coordination for tissue procurement and distribution, donor tissue screening, removal of tissues and storage.

It will also preserve tissue, look after laboratory screening of tissues, tissue tracking, sterilization, records maintenance, data protection and confidentiality, quality management in tissues, patient information on tissues, development of guidelines, protocols and standard operating procedures, trainings and assisting as per requirement in registration of other tissue banks, said the statement.