Ethics and Organ Donation After Cardiac Arrest.

World Kidney Day 2012: The Global Role of Kidney Transplantation

Normothermic Regional Perfusion: Ethical Issues in Thoracic Organ Donation

John Edwards is the clinical administrator for Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia, Pa, overseeing all clinical aspects of organ and tissue recovery, and a faculty member for the Gift of Life Institute, Philadelphia, providing training and mentoring for healthcare organizations nationally. Patti Mulvania oversees the clinical education program for the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia and is a faculty member of the Gift of Life Institute, specializing in consent and clinical communication. Virginia Robertson is the associate director of the Gift of Life Institute in Philadelphia. Formerly, she was the director of hospital services for the Gift of Life Donor Program. Gweneth George is the director of hospital services for the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia. She directs a team of nearly 20 hospital development staff accountable for donation performance in 150 acute care hospitals. Richard Hasz is vice president of clinical services for the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia. He oversees the day-to-day clinical operations, including transplant coordination, hospital development, organ preservation, and tissue recovery. Howard Nathan is president and chief executive officer of the Gift of Life Donor Program in Philadelphia. The program has been involved in coordinating more than 22 000 organ transplantations and tens of thousands of tissue transplantations since 1974.

Safety and Outcomes in 100 Consecutive Donation After Circulatory Death Liver Transplants Using a Protocol That Includes Thrombolytic Therapy.

Extracorporeal Support Can Avoid Pediatric Donor Organ Donation Failure Caused by Unfinished Brain Death Determination.

Over the decade between 2003 and 2012, the UK has seen major changes in how organ donation and transplantation is delivered. The number of deceased organ donors has increased from 709 (12.0 per million population [pmp]) to 1,164 (18.3 pmp); this increase has been predominantly a result of an increase in donors after circulatory death (DCD) (from 1.1 pmp to 7.9 pmp) while the numbers of donors after brain death (DBD) has remained broadly stable (around 10.5 pmp). The donor population has become older (from 14% 60 years or over to 35%) and heavier (from 14% with body mass index >=30 kg/m2 to 23%). Despite these changes in demographic factors, the number of organs retrieved from DBD donors has risen from a mean of 3.6 to 4.0 per donor and for DCD donors from 2.2 to 2.6. The number of transplants in adults in 2012 was 2,709 (967 DBD, 708 DCD, and 1,034 living) for kidney alone, 246 pancreas (including 172 kidney and pancreas), 792 (611 DBD, 142 DCD, 36 living, and 3 domino) for liver, 136 for heart only, and 179 (145 DBD and 34 DCD) for lung only. Median waiting times to transplant for adult patients were 1,167, 339, 141, 293, and 311 days, respectively. The proportion of adult non-urgent registrants in 2009 (2007 for kidneys) who were removed from the waiting list or died awaiting a graft within 1 year was 3% for kidneys, 6% for pancreas, 19% for liver, 27% for heart, and 24% for lung. Outcomes after solid organ transplants are improving; for adult patients grafted between 2003 and 2005, 5-year graft survival for kidney is 84% (DBD), 87% (DCD), and 92% (living donor), for simultaneous kidney and pancreas 72%, and for pancreas alone 50% (DBD). Five-year patient survival for liver is 77% (DBD) and 68% (DCD), heart 67%, and lung 52% (DBD). Although rates of organ donation and transplantation have increased in the UK, this has been almost solely because of a rise in DCD donation. Although donor age and weight is increasing, graft survival has generally improved. Despite a recent fall in the number of patients on the transplant waiting list, there remains a significant gap between the need for transplantation and the number of organs available from deceased and living donors. The implementation of a new strategy following the recommendations of the Organ Donation Task Force in 2008 has had a major impact in bringing together clinicians involved in both organ donation and transplantation, and these changes and clinical enthusiasm have been instrumental in achieving success. With an emphasis on the need to increase the family consent rate for organ donation, which has failed to show any improvement over the last 5 years, a new UK strategy for organ donation and transplantation, introduced in 2013, will further increase organ transplantation in the UK.

Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative

Donation after circulatory death – a new role for the anaesthetist?

Counterpoint: Are Donors After Circulatory Death Really Dead, and Does It Matter? No and Not Really

Organ Donation after Cardiac DeathIn this issue of the Journal, Boucek et al. (pages 709–714) report on three cases of heart transplantation from infants who were pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. The three Perspective articles and a video roundtable discussion at www.nejm.org address key ethical aspects of organ donation after cardiac death. Bernat and Veatch comment on the cases described by Boucek et al.; Truog and Miller raise a fundamental question about the dead donor rule. In a related Perspective roundtable, moderator Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School, is joined by George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health; Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Robert Truog. Watch the roundtable online at www.nejm.org.Organ donation after circulatory (or cardiac) death has become an accepted medical practice over the past 15 years.1 Programs permitting such donations satisfy two needs: they provide organs in addition to those procured after brain death, and they fulfill the wish of family members that relatives with severe brain injuries serve as organ donors after cessation of life-sustaining therapy and subsequent death. The proliferation of protocols for donation after circulatory death has been spurred by the publication of three reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), support by the Department of Health and Human Services, and the establishment of criteria . . .

Between-hospital variability in organ donation after resuscitation from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest

Defining the optimal duration for normothermic regional perfusion in the kidney donor: A porcine preclinical study.

Organ donation after cardiac death: a new trend in pediatrics.

The authors present the case of a woman in her mid-50s who sustained extensive brain injury in an accident but wasn't declared brain dead. The case highlights some of the clinical and ethical considerations of organ donation after circulatory death (also known as non-heart-beating donation and donation after cardiac death). It also illustrates the interdisciplinary teamwork necessary for organ donation in such cases, involving nurses and other clinicians in the ICU, palliative care, and the local organ procurement organization, among others. cardiac death, circulatory death, donation after cardiac death, end-of-life care, ethics, non-heart-beating donation, organ donation, organ donation after circulatory death, organ transplantation, palliative care.

BackgroundTrauma victims could be an important source of organs. This article presents two cases of successful organ donation and transplant, after Maastricht category III cardiac death in patients with successfully repaired AAST grade V traumatic cardiac injuries.Case presentationThe first donor was an adult patient with self-inflicted heart stab wound and non-survivable burn injury. The second one was an adult patient with blunt cardiac and abdominal trauma and an anoxic brain injury due to a car accident. The cardiac injury was promptly repaired in both patients. In the first case, adequate organ perfusion ante-mortem was achieved thanks to venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and intensive care unit support. The above procedure allowed successful organ donation and transplantation even after Maastricht category III cardiac death. This is the first case reported where, for organ donation purposes, it was made necessary first thing to avoid the immediate death of the patient, due to a rare and frequently not survivable cardiac injury. The challenge of preserving organ perfusion, due to major burn injury effects, was faced afterwards.ConclusionsThe outcomes of these two cases suggest that a repaired heart injury should not be considered as an absolute contraindication to organ donation, even if it is associated with non-survivable major burns. Therefore, cardiac death could provide an opportunity for these kinds of patients to contribute to the pool of potential organ donors.