The transplant society's statistics showed an average of 8,000 kidney transplants are performed every year in China, which satisfies less than 10 percent of demand.

Due to a shortage of donated kidneys, most patients rely on costly hemodialysis treatment to stay alive, said Chen Jianghua, a professor with the Nephrology Center of the First Affiliated Hospital of the Zhejiang University, east China's Zhejiang Province.

A patient may spend 40,000 yuan (US$5,000) on a kidney transplant and other services when being hospitalized, but hemodialysis costs up to 70,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan, Chen said.

Chen's hospital alone receives about 70,000 patients with kidney problems each year and performs hemodialysis for many of them.

In the past decade, renal disease became one of the world's top five lethal chronic diseases. In China, it affects eight to 10 percent of people above age 40.

According to China's regulations on organ transplants that went into force in July, a new organization will be set up to register and allocate donated organs, and evaluate the quality of the organ transplant surgery.

Only the top-tier hospitals - usually located in provincial capitals - will be allowed to perform organ transplants once they have been approved by the Ministry of Health. Officials have not decided whether exceptions will be made in emergency cases.

Before the regulations went into force, some transplants were carried out by unqualified doctors with substandard medical equipment, leading to transplant fatalities.