Iran is a tropical country with a land area of 631660 square miles and a population of 97 people per square mile. Iran has a recorded history of 2552 years. It's earliest medical school, was Pasargad. Jondi Chapour University, founded 1752 years ago during the Sassanid dynasty as a center of higher education in medicine philosophy and pharmacology was one of the biggest center for sciences then. Indeed the idea of zeno-transplantation dates back to those glorious days, as evidenced by engraving of many mythological chimeras still present in Persepolis manifesting the idea of chimera with the body of lion and head of human . These kind of creature continued to be shown in different part of Iran like the very impressive chimera in Gheissarieh Bazar of Isfahan. Progress of transplantation in Iran, has the same pattern as all over the world. It started with kidney transplantation 36 years ago and followed by, Conea, Bone Marrow. Liver, heart and lung transplantation since 1993. The first living related kidney transplantation performed in Shiraz university hospital in 1968. One hundered and twelve renal transplantation were performed from living related donors, two cadavers and fourteen cadaver kidney imported through Eurotransplantation Network from 1968 to 1984 .Subsequently, in late 1985, the renal transplantation programme was officially started in a major university hospital in Tehran and was set to carry out two to four transplantations each week. Soon after, another large center initiated a similar program. Both of these centers accepted surgical, medical and nursing teams from other academic medical centers for traning in kidney transplantation. Since 2002 there are 23 active renal transplantation cernters in different cities of Iran. Most of these 23 centers are in university hospitals .In the last 5 years three private hospital have started the kidney transplant programme in small scale. As a result by end of 2003 total number of 16859 renal transplantation reported by management center for transplantation. The source of donors being 82% LURD, 10% Cadaver and 8% LRD. Three years patient's survival 92.9% and 40 months graft survival 85.9%. In June 2000 the brain death law passed in parliament, followed by stablishment of Iranian Network for transplantation organ procurement (IRANTOP). The outcome of this act helped to expand the programme of Heart, lung and liver transplantation. The latest statistic released in 2003 is as follows: Liver Tx.131, Heart Tx. 77, Lung Tx. 7, Bone Marrow Tx.211 and Cornea 2581 cases.
Final step for expanding the transplantation programm is the stablishment of Avi-Cena (Abou Ali Sina) Transplant hospital in Shiraz which seems to have bright horizon for transplant technology in Iran and Middle East.