Timing comparison of donation process after the new real decreto of transplantation in Spain

Abstract

IN SPAIN January 2001, a new Real Decreto regulates the Transplant Law of 1979. The main feature is a change in the brain death (BD) diagnosis, giving more strength to clinical evaluation and allowing the use of different BD diagnostic tools (electroencephalograph [EEG], cerebral blood flow studies [CBFS]) instead of two obligatory flat EEG separated by 6 hours as required by the Real Decreto of 1980. We compared the timing of the donation process between donor detection and organ extraction (OE) before and after the introduction of the new Real Order to establish if it is necessary to modify the logistic organisation of the process.