TEHRAN — Masih Daneshvari Hospital, north of Tehran, ranks the third in performing transplant procedures in the world, an official at the hospital said, the ISNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Doctor Farahnaz Sadeq Beygi who is also a board member at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences added that so far 2,043 transplantations have been performed and it places Iran as the first transplant center in the Middle East.

Every year about 6,000 to 8,000 die of brain death and given the patients are timely diagnosed and the families consent on average half of them are good candidates for organ donation, but ultimately only one fourth of them will donate their organs, she lamented.

She regretted that 20,000 to 25,000 patients are in transplant waiting lists and sadly 7,000 to 10,000 of them dying while waiting for a life-saving transplant each year.

In Masih Daneshvari Hospital 90 to 100 percent of the brain deaths ends in organ donation, but unfortunately only 32 to 42 percent of the brain death patients in the country will end up donating their organs, Sadeq Beygi lamented.

It is worth mentioning that in some of the cities such as Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province all the brain death cases wind up in organ donation, she stated.

MQ