During my presentation at the IXth Congress of the Polish Transplantation Society, I will present information from The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation Registry (the Registry). The Registry was created in order to provide current information on the worldwide thoracic organ transplantation experience. In 2008, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Registry; since 1983 the Registry has collected and reported data regarding more than 80,000 heart transplants; more than 3,000 heart-lung transplants; and more than 29,000 lung and heart-lung transplants. The past year has also been our most active to date, with 5,828 transplants added to the Registry from more than 200 centers worldwide.Data collected by the Registry includes survival data, risk factor data, and other outcome data. Each year, the Registry publishes four reports in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation (http://www.jhltonline.org/): Pediatric Heart Transplantation; Pediatric Lung and Heart-lung Transplantation; Adult Heart Transplantation; and Adult Lung and Heart-lung Transplantation. In addition, all of the data figures and tables included in the Registry reports are also available for viewing and downloading on the ISHLT web site (www.ishlt.org/registries) in MS PowerPoint® format. The web site also contains many additional data slides that are not included in the published reports.The Registry encourages ISHLT members to suggest and participate in in-depth analyses of heart and lung transplant data. Individuals who wish to initiate new projects should first complete a data request form (available at www.ishlt.org). The ISHLT also supports Transplant Registry Junior Faculty Awards. These are small grants that are designed to enable use of the Registry data set to explore, in detail, a topic of relevance to the heart and lung transplant communities. The goals of the Registry Junior Faculty Awards are: to optimize new knowledge creation based on data from the Registry; and to provide a training opportunity for junior faculty with career interests in epidemiology and outcomes research related to heart and lung transplantation. Individuals who wish to learn more about the Junior Faculty Award may do so at www.ishlt.org/awards.

Keywords: Lung Transplantation