We are pleased to inform you that the health research project Liguria-Trento Transplant Network (LTTN) has just been completed. The LTTN Project was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health during the years 2000-2002 with the aim to realize a macroregional informative system in the field of solid organ transplantation. The main objective of the LTTN Project was to support cadaveric donor management, solid organ procurement, transplantation surgery and patient/graft follow-up.

Partnership of the LTTN Project were two Regional Transplant Coordinating Centres (Liguria Region and Provincia Autonoma di Trento), Department of Communication, Computer and System Sciences (University of Genoa), ITC/IRST (Centre for Scientific and Technological Research of the ITC -Istituto Trentino di Cultura), Nord Italia Transplant Interregional Coordinating Centre and the Italian Institute of Health/National Transplant Coordinating Centre.

Final development includes a low-tech prototype powered by Web-accessed relational database, running on a secure (https and VPN) transplant network including Web-based clients located in 17 Intensive Care Units, connected with Regional Transplant Coordinating Centres (Genoa and Trento), Nord Italia Transplant Interregional Coordinating Centre (Milan), and the Italian Institute of Health/National Transplant Coordinating Centre (Rome).

The LTTN registry includes pre-transplant, surgical and post-transplant phases regarding liver, kidney, pancreas, and kidney/pancreas transplantation in both adult and paediatric recipients. Clinical specifications were evaluated for their appropriateness and prioritized in agreement with the RAND/UCLA appropriateness method.

The informative system and the registry are currently in routine use regarding cadaveric donor dataset, thus concluding that the LTTN Project has been a successful and inexpensive experience of a transplant network, full transferable to the National Healthcare Service. Further implementation will include formal rules for data access and output release, fault tolerance and a continuous registry evolution planning. Continuous life-cycle management of the LTTN system will include permanent data management, analysis and output, configuration administration, service upgrades and registry evolution planning.

Prof. Umberto Valente
Chairman, Transplantation Department of Genoa
Scientific Responsible for the LTTN Project