Medical intelligence platform
Organ transplant abroad, explained honestly
An organ transplant abroad follows the same clinical logic as one at home — what changes is the paperwork, the law and the distance. This platform explains how transplant teams assess whether someone is a candidate, what living donation actually requires, what a quoted price does and does not cover, and what to have ready before anyone travels. It does not decide eligibility, and it does not find donors.
- Every clinical claim carries a named source
- Clinical pages carry a named medical reviewer
- Prices are dated, sourced and re-verified
- Never a donor marketplace
- Explains kidney, liver and stem cell transplant pathways in plain language, with a named source behind every factual claim.
- Sets out what a living donor evaluation involves, and which documents a country is likely to require.
- Shows what a transplant abroad costs — from a price registry that records who checked each figure and when.
- Describes the regulatory approval a living donor transplant needs, which is a separate step from medical clearance.
- Helps you prepare a complete case, so a transplant team can say quickly whether an evaluation is worth arranging.
- Passes that case to authorised transplant teams, who make every decision about it.
Start where you are
Most families arrive somewhere in the middle. Pick the step you are on.
Understanding the options
What each transplant involves, and which conditions lead to it.
Checking who may donate
Blood group first, then the law of the destination.
Comparing centres
Hospitals and clinicians we have checked, by country.
Planning and budgeting
Verified price ranges, and a budget you can build yourself.
After the transplant
Follow-up, medication, and the return home.
Transplants
Each procedure explained end to end — evaluation, the operation, recovery, risks and costs — with a named source behind every factual claim.
Conditions
The conditions that lead to transplantation: what they are, how they progress, and when a transplant enters the picture.
A network of verified transplant hospitals
Every hospital and doctor here has been checked by a person against a public reference — never listed for a fee. Absence means unverified, not unavailable.
- 8
- Verified hospitals
- 9
- Verified doctors
- 1
- Current verified prices
- 16
- Sources in the evidence registry
Turkey
8 Verified hospitals
Guides by destination
- Corneal transplant in TurkeyA corneal transplant in Turkey is genuinely available to international patients, because banked tissue lets surgery be scheduled rather than waited for. The decisive question is not access but who manages the long follow-up after you fly home.
- Lung transplant in TurkeyA lung transplant in Turkey is not open to a visiting foreign patient: lungs come only from deceased donors allocated through the national system. Assessment, second opinions and treatment of the underlying lung disease genuinely are available.
- Heart transplant in TurkeyA heart transplant in Turkey is not open to a visiting foreign patient: hearts come only from deceased donors allocated through the national system. Türkiye's cardiac centres are capable, and device therapy, other cardiac surgery and second opinions genuinely are available.
- Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant in Turkey: Donors, Cost & HospitalsA bone marrow and stem cell transplant in Turkey may be available to eligible international patients through specialised HSCT centres. Treatment can use the patient's own cells or cells from a related, unrelated or partially matched donor.
- Liver Transplant in Turkey: Donor Rules, Cost, Hospitals & RecoveryA liver transplant in Turkey may be available to eligible international patients through authorised transplant centres, particularly with an approved living donor. Recipient, donor, medical and legal requirements must all be satisfied before surgery.
- Kidney Transplant in Turkey: Donor Rules, Cost, Hospitals & RecoveryA kidney transplant in Turkey may be available to eligible international patients, particularly through an approved living donor pathway. Turkish rules regulate donor relationships, ethics review, transplant centres and national organ allocation.
How the process usually works
Transplantation abroad follows the same clinical logic as transplantation at home. A transplant team reviews the medical history, confirms that transplantation is an appropriate treatment, and assesses whether the patient is well enough for surgery. Where a living donor is involved, the donor is evaluated separately and independently, by clinicians whose responsibility is the donor rather than the recipient.
What differs abroad is the administration around that clinical process: the documentation required to demonstrate the relationship between donor and recipient, the regulatory approval that a country requires before a living donor transplant may proceed, and the practical planning of travel, accommodation and follow-up.
- Medical review of the recipient by a transplant team
- Independent evaluation of any living donor
- Compatibility testing
- Regulatory and ethics review where required by law
- Surgery, inpatient recovery and structured follow-up
What to establish before anyone travels
Most of what goes wrong with a transplant abroad is foreseeable, and foreseeable now rather than later. These are the questions worth answering in writing, with the treating centre, before money moves or flights are booked.
- Whether a transplant team has actually reviewed the medical file — not an agent, and not a form
- What the quoted price covers, itemised, and what happens to it if the stay runs longer
- Whether the donor evaluation and surgery are inside that figure or outside it
- What documentation of the donor relationship the destination country requires
- Which authority must approve a living donor transplant, and how long that usually takes
- Who will supervise follow-up at home, and what the centre will send them
- Whether the immunosuppressive medication is available and affordable where you live
Questions people ask first
What is an organ transplant?
An organ transplant replaces an organ that has failed with a healthy one from a donor. The organ may come from a living donor, as with a kidney or part of a liver, or from someone who has died and whose family consented to donation. It is not a repair of the old organ but a replacement of it, which is why organ transplantation is considered only when the failing organ is more dangerous to keep than the surgery is to undergo.
Can international patients have an organ transplant abroad?
Yes, under conditions. In practice the route open to a foreign patient is living donation: you travel with a donor whose relationship to you the destination country accepts, and an ethics committee reviews the file. Deceased-donor waiting lists are reserved for residents almost everywhere, because organs donated after death are a national resource distributed by national authorities on medical priority.
Which organ transplants can be arranged abroad?
The procedures we work with are kidney transplantation, liver transplantation, and bone marrow and stem cell transplantation. Each has its own donor rules: a kidney or part of a liver comes from a living donor, while a marrow transplant depends first on tissue matching rather than on law.
Do I need to bring my own donor?
For a kidney or liver transplant abroad, yes in almost every case. The donor travels with you, is assessed independently by the hospital, and signs their own consent. If no suitable donor exists in your family, the honest answer is that transplantation abroad is not currently open to you, and registering with the national programme at home is the right path.
Is it legal to buy an organ?
No. Buying and selling organs is a crime in every country that performs transplants, and is prohibited by the WHO Guiding Principles and the Declaration of Istanbul. Any service offering to supply a donor for money is offering you a crime, not a medical service, and should be treated as a serious warning sign.
How much does an organ transplant cost abroad?
It depends on the procedure, the country and the hospital, which is why we publish verified price ranges from our own registry rather than a single headline figure. What matters as much as the number is what the package includes: ask in writing whether it covers both surgeries, the donor assessment, a defined number of days in hospital, and what happens to the cost if a complication extends the stay.
What is not included in the price?
Usually: the weeks of follow-up after discharge, lifelong immunosuppressant medicines, accommodation and travel for the patient, the donor and a companion, and any complication that lengthens the stay. Immunosuppressants in particular are a permanent monthly cost after a kidney or liver transplant, and belong in your long-term budget rather than in the surgical quote.
Which countries do you work in?
We currently place patients in Türkiye, India, Mexico, South Korea and Thailand. Programmes in Europe, Asia and the Americas are being prepared. We list a country only once we actually work in it, which is why the list is short.
How do you choose the hospitals you work with?
A hospital appears on this site because we hold verified records for it — a verified price for the procedure, and where relevant verified doctors with current posts there. A hospital does not appear because it paid to. Where our data on a centre is incomplete, it is simply absent rather than described in vague terms.
How long does the whole process take?
From a complete file to surgery is usually a matter of months rather than weeks. Donor assessment alone takes weeks, legal documents must be translated and certified, an ethics committee has to meet, and visas take their own time. Anyone promising a transplant within days is describing something other than a lawful transplant programme.
What documents will I need?
Recent medical reports and imaging, blood group and tissue-typing results where relevant, and official documents proving the relationship between patient and donor — translated and certified. Some centres also ask for a DNA test to confirm a family relationship. Visas are a separate file for the patient, the donor and any companion.
Do you arrange visas, travel and accommodation?
Yes. Coordinating the non-medical half of the journey is a large part of what we do: hospital appointments, the invitation letters visas require, flights, and accommodation near the centre for the weeks of follow-up after discharge. The medical decisions remain entirely with the transplant team.
What happens if the ethics committee refuses?
Then the transplant does not proceed in that country, and no hospital, agency or platform can overrule that. The committee exists to verify that the donation is free of payment and coercion. We say this before you spend anything, because a refusal after months of expense is the outcome we most want you to avoid.
Can a living donor change their mind?
Yes, at any point, without giving a reason, and good centres will provide a neutral medical explanation that protects the donor within their family. That right is not a formality on a consent form — it is the line between a legitimate donation programme and exploitation. The one moment it becomes medically critical is after the recipient has begun conditioning treatment, which is why the final decision is confirmed before that point.
Do you guarantee that I will be accepted for a transplant?
No, and neither can anyone else. Acceptance is a judgement made by a transplant team, and in most countries also by a regulatory authority, after they have examined the patient and the donor. Nothing on this site tells you that you qualify; what it can do is show you what the criteria are, so you arrive prepared.
What are the risks of organ transplantation?
They fall into three periods: the surgery itself, with bleeding and vascular or biliary complications; the first months, when rejection and infection are most likely because immunosuppression is at its highest; and the long term, where the medicines themselves raise blood pressure, blood sugar, kidney strain and the risk of some cancers. Each procedure page sets these out in full, with the sources they come from.
Will I take medication for the rest of my life?
After a kidney or liver transplant, yes: immunosuppressants are taken daily, at the same time each day, for as long as the transplanted organ works. Stopping them because you feel well is the commonest reason a working organ is lost years later. Bone marrow transplantation is different — there the aim is to withdraw the medicines gradually once the new immune system settles.
How long must I stay in the destination country?
Longer than the hospital stay. For a kidney or liver transplant, plan for four to eight weeks near the centre after discharge, because that is when rejection and biliary problems appear and drug levels are still being adjusted. For a bone marrow transplant, plan for at least three months.
What follow-up do I need after an organ transplant?
Frequent blood tests at first, spacing out to every few months and then annually if you remain stable, plus drug-level monitoring, an annual skin check, and the ordinary cancer screening for your age. Follow-up can be transferred to a team at home, and arranging that handover before you travel is worth doing.
Can I have a transplant if I have hepatitis B or another infection?
Often yes. Hepatitis B and C are among the commonest reasons for liver transplantation worldwide, and antiviral treatment continues before and after surgery to protect the new organ. What must be controlled first is active, untreated infection. This is a question for the transplant team, and the answer depends on the specific infection.
Is a deceased-donor transplant available to foreign patients?
Generally no. National waiting lists allocate organs by medical priority among residents and citizens, and travelling to join one is not possible in the countries patients usually ask about. This is not discrimination against foreigners; it is how a donated national resource is distributed.
What languages do you work in?
Our coordinators and interpreters work with patients in more than eighteen languages, and the family speaks to us in whichever they are most comfortable in. This website itself is published in English and Arabic, with more languages added as they are translated.
Is the information on this site medical advice?
No. It explains published criteria and general rules so that you can have a better-informed conversation with a doctor. It does not establish a doctor–patient relationship and does not determine anyone medical or legal eligibility. If your situation is an emergency, go to the nearest hospital rather than reading further.
How do I start?
Send your recent medical reports and, if you have one, the details of a potential donor. We review the file, tell you plainly whether it is eligible in principle and what is missing, and set out the realistic options. There is no charge for that review, and your documents are not shared with anyone without your permission.
Ask for a case review
- Read by a transplant coordinator, not an automated system.
- Your reports stay private and are never shared without your consent.
- Nothing is decided here — a transplant team assesses every case.
Have a case reviewed
Send the medical reports you already have. A transplant team decides whether an evaluation is appropriate — this platform does not, and will not tell you otherwise.
Read what a case review needs