Background: An increasing number of cell, tissue and organ transplant procedures take place each year in Canada, including procedures in clinics, physician and dental offices. The Public Health Agency of Canada (the Agency) is leading the development of a Cell, Tissue and Organ Surveillance System (CTOSS).
Objective: To create timely, useful and relevant national-level transplantation adverse event data by supporting the development and / or enhancement of provincial and territorial data collection systems.
Methods: Minimum data elements and definitions were established for tissues based on definitions established in the European Union and the United States. Data collection on adverse events related to human allograft tissue transplants began in April 2011 at pilot sites in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Results: By December 2013, eight tissue transplantation adverse events were reported. Seven involved corneal tissue and one involved cardiovascular tissue.
Conclusion: A fully developed CTOSS could increase Canadian capacity to improve patient safety. Data collection and analysis could increase the potential for a better understanding of transplantation adverse events, subsequently inform the development of strategies for overall prevention and reduce the severity of such events. The next steps in developing CTOSS will be to establish data elements and definitions for the cell and organ transplant components of the system and increase the number of pilot sites.