Benefit in liver transplantation: a survey among medical staff, patients, medical students and non-medical university staff and students.

Background: The allocation of any scarce health care resource, especially a lifesaving resource, can create profound ethical and legal challenges. Liver transplant allocation currently is based upon urgency, a sickest-first approach, and does not utilize capacity to benefit. While urgency can be described reasonably well with the MELD system, benefit encompasses multiple dimensions of patients' well-being.

[Perception of the Liver Allocation System by Different Stakeholders].

The German Transplant Law is the legal basis of the liver allocation system in Germany and is specified by the guidelines of the German Medical Association. These guidelines are based on current medical knowledge. The procedure of developing these guidelines was formalised and made transparent.