scholarly journals Solid organ donation from the emergency department – missed donor opportunities

CJEM ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 701-707
Author(s):  
Jessica McCallum ◽  
Ryan Yip ◽  
Sonny Dhanani ◽  
Ian Stiell

ABSTRACTObjectiveA significant gap exists between people awaiting solid organ transplantation and solid organ donors. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were missed donors in the emergency department (ED).MethodsWe performed a health records and organ donation database review of all patients dying in a large tertiary ED from November 1, 2014 to October 31, 2017 at two campuses with 160,000 visits per year. Demographic and donor suitability data were collected. The primary outcome was missed potential solid organ donors. Missed potential donors were intubated, had a pulse, and had no donation contraindications. The secondary outcome was cases where no notification was made to the organ donation organization at all.ResultsThere were 605 deaths in the ED. Patients had a mean age of 71.1 years, 58.3% were male, and 12.4% died of a traumatic cause. There were 10 missed potential donors. Missed potential donors had a mean age of 67.4 years, 70.0% were male, and 20.0% died from trauma. In all 10 cases, patients had withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy for medical futility, and referral for donation occurred after death. Missed ED donors could have increased hospital-wide donation up to 10.6%. No notification was made in 12 (2.0%) cases; however, none of these would have been successful solid organ donors.ConclusionThe ED is a source of missed organ donors. All potential donors were missed due to referral after withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy. ED physicians should consider the possibility of solid organ donation prior to the withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy.

CJEM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (S1) ◽  
pp. S31-S32
Author(s):  
J. McCallum ◽  
R. Yip ◽  
S. Dhanani ◽  
I. Stiell

Introduction: A significant gap exists between the number of people waiting for an organ and donors. There are currently 1,628 people awaiting organ donation in Ontario alone. In 2018 to date, 310 donors have donated 858 organs. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were missed donors in the Emergency Department (ED) and by what percent those missed donors would increase organ donation overall. Methods: This was a health records and organ donation database review of all patients who died in the ED at a large academic tertiary care center with 2 campuses and 160,000 visits per year. Patients were included from November 1, 2014 – October 31, 2017. We collected data on demographics, cause of death, and suitability for organ donation. Data was cross-referenced between hospital records and the provincial organ procurement organization called Trillium Gift of Life Network (TGLN) to determine whether patients were appropriately referred for consideration of donation in a timely manner. Potential missed donors were manually screened for suitability according to TGLN criteria. We calculated simple descriptive statistics for demographic data and the primary outcome. The primary outcome was percentage of potential organ donors missed in the Emergency Department (ED). Results: There were 606 deaths in the ED from November 1, 2014 – October 31, 2017. Patients were an average of 71 years old, 353 (58%) were male, and 75 (12%) died of a traumatic cause. TGLN was not contacted in 12 (2%) of cases. During this period there were two donors from the ED and 92 from the ICU. There were ten missed potential donors. They were an average of 67 years, 7 (70%) were male, and 2 (20%) died of a traumatic cause. In all ten cases, patients had withdrawal of life sustaining measures for medical futility prior to TGLN being contacted for consideration of donation. There could have been an addition seven liver, six pancreatic islet, four small bowel, and seven kidney donors. The ten missed ED donors could have increased total donors by 11%. Conclusion: The ED is a significant source of missed organ donors. In all cases of missed organ donation, patients had withdrawal of life sustaining measures prior to TGLN being called. In the future, it is essential that all patients have an organ procurement organization such as TGLN called prior to withdrawal of life sustaining measures to ensure that no opportunity for consideration of organ donation is missed.


CJEM ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (S1) ◽  
pp. S91-S91
Author(s):  
J. McCallum ◽  
B. Ellis ◽  
I. G. Stiell

Introduction: There is a significant gap between the number of organ donors and people awaiting an organ transplant; therefore it is essential that all potential donors are identified. Given the nature of Emergency Medicine it is a potential source of organ donors. The purpose of this study is to determine what percent of successful donors come from the Emergency Department (ED) and whether there are any missed potential donors. Methods: Electronic searches of EMBASE, MEDLINE, and CINAHL were performed July 7, 2017 using PRISMA guidelines. Primary literature in human adults were included if they described identification of patients in the ED who went on to become successful solid organ donors, or described missed potential donors in the ED. Data on the total population of actual or missed donors was required to allow calculation of a percentage. Studies describing non-solid organ donation, consent, ethics, survey of attitudes, teaching curricula, procurement techniques, donation outside the ED, and recipient factors were excluded. 2 authors independently screened articles for inclusion and discrepancies were resolved through consensus. Quality was assessed using STROBE for observational studies. Heterogeneity of patient populations precluded pooling of the data to conduct a meta-analysis. Results: 1058 articles were identified, 17 duplicates were removed, 800 articles were excluded based on title and abstract, and 217 full text articles were excluded, yielding 24 articles for the systematic review. For neurologic determination of death (NDD), ED patients comprised 4 44% of successful donors. ED death reviews revealed 0 84% of patients dying in the ED are missed as potential donors and hospital-wide death reviews revealed 13 80.9% of missed donors die in the ED. For donation after cardiac death (DCD), 4 20% of successful donors came from the ED and studies investigating potential donors suggest 2 36% of patients dying the in the ED could be potential DCD donors. The most common population of successful DCD organ donors was in traumatic cardiopulmonary arrest (TCPA), with 3.6 8.9% of TCPA patients presenting to the ED becoming successful donors. Conclusion: Patients dying in the Emergency Department are a significant source of both successful organ donors and missed potential donors. Emergency physicians should be familiar with their local organ donation protocol to ensure potential organ donors are not missed.


CJEM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 626-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCallum ◽  
Brittany Ellis ◽  
Sonny Dhanani ◽  
Ian G. Stiell

ABSTRACTObjectivesA significant gap exists between people awaiting an organ transplant and organ donors. The purpose of this study was to determine what percent of successful donors come from the emergency department (ED), whether there are any missed donors, and to identify factors associated with successful and missed donation.MethodsThis systematic review used electronic searches of EMBASE, MEDLINE, and CINAHL according to PRISMA guidelines on July 7, 2017. We included primary literature in adults describing successful and missed organ donation. Two authors independently screened articles, and discrepancies were resolved through consensus. Quality was assessed using the STROBE checklist.ResultsThis systematic review identified 1,058 articles, and 25 articles were included. For neurologic determination of death, ED patients comprised 4%–50% of successful donors and 3.6%–8.9% of successful donors for donation after circulatory determination of death. ED death reviews revealed up to 84% of missed neurologic determination of death, and 46.2% of missed circulatory determination of death donors who died in the ED are missed due to a failure to refer for consideration of organ donation. Clinical heterogeneity precluded pooling of the data to conduct a meta-analysis.ConclusionsThe ED is a source of actual and missed donors. Potential donors are often missed due to incorrect assumptions regarding eligibility criteria and failure of the healthcare team to refer for consideration of donation. ED healthcare professionals should be aware of organ donation referral protocols at their institution to ensure that no organ donors are missed.


2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haley Hoy ◽  
Susan Alexander ◽  
Karen H. Frith

Context Despite the increase in rates of solid organ transplantation in the past 2 decades, nurses are inconsistently educated regarding issues of organ donation and posttransplant care. Objective To characterize the attitudes of registered nurses before and after a graduate-level elective on issues in transplantation. Design Pre-experimental, pretest and posttest interventional study Participants 30 graduate students, who are registered nurses, who enrolled in a transplant elective at a university in the Southeastern United States Main Outcome Measure Investigator-designed survey tool consisting of 18 questions delivered in an electronic format. Results Statistically significant results were seen in nurses' attitudes toward encouraging others to become organ donors ( P = .04), preparation to discuss transplantation with others ( P< .001), advocacy to discuss transplantation among colleagues ( P = .003), confidence in working with transplant patients ( P = .005), confidence in speaking to communities about organ donation ( P = .001), and plans to encourage others to get involved in transplantation ( P = .03). Conclusion These results support the need for providing focused education on transplantation issues to registered nurses, particularly in the academic setting.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (34) ◽  
Author(s):  
M R Capobianchi ◽  
V Sambri ◽  
C Castilletti ◽  
A M Pierro ◽  
G Rossini ◽  
...  

Since the occurrence of West Nile virus (WNV) infection in humans in 2008 in Italy, concerns have been raised about the potential risks associated with solid organ transplantation (SOT). A nationwide retrospective survey showed that 1.2% of SOT donors in 2009 were WNV-seropositive and demonstrated that human WNV infection is distributed throughout several Italian regions. Transmission of WNV or other arboviruses through SOT is a possibility and risk assessment should be carried out before SOT to avoid infection through transplantation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham J. Matar ◽  
Rebecca L. Crepeau ◽  
Gerhard S. Mundinger ◽  
Curtis L. Cetrulo ◽  
Radbeh Torabi

Over the past twenty years, significant technical strides have been made in the area of vascularized composite tissue allotransplantation (VCA). As in solid organ transplantation, the allogeneic immune response remains a significant barrier to long-term VCA survival and function. Strategies to overcome acute and chronic rejection, minimize immunosuppression and prolong VCA survival have important clinical implications. Historically, large animals have provided a valuable model for testing the clinical translatability of immune modulating approaches in transplantation, including tolerance induction, co-stimulation blockade, cellular therapies, and ex vivo perfusion. Recently, significant advancements have been made in these arenas utilizing large animal VCA models. In this comprehensive review, we highlight recent immune strategies undertaken to improve VCA outcomes with a focus on relevant preclinical large animal models.


Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Cocco

Solid organ transplantation represents one of the most important achievements in history of medicine. Over the last decades, the increasing number of transplants has not been of the same extent of the number of patients in the waiting lists. Live donation has been implemented in order to reduce the gap between supply and demand. From an ethical standpoint, the donation process from a live donor seems to violate the traditional first rule of medicine—primum non nocere because inevitably exposes healthy persons to a risk in order to benefit another person. In the chapter will be presented the crucial role of ethics and specific ethical issues in the different forms of live donation, such as financial incentives for living donation, reimbursement in unrelated live donation, minor sibling-to-sibling organ donation. The ethical aspects of live donor organ transplantation are continuously evolving; in order to make this strategy more beneficial and lifesaving, everyone involved in the process should make every possible effort with in mind the best interests of the patients.


BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e038340
Author(s):  
Aki Uutela ◽  
Ilkka Helanterä ◽  
Karl Lemström ◽  
Arie Passov ◽  
Simo Syrjälä ◽  
...  

IntroductionRemote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC) using a non-invasive pneumatic tourniquet is a potential method for reducing ischaemia-reperfusion injury. RIPC has been extensively studied in animal models and cardiac surgery, but scarcely in solid organ transplantation. RIPC could be an inexpensive and simple method to improve function of transplanted organs. Accordingly, we aim to study whether RIPC performed in brain-dead organ donors improves function and longevity of transplanted organs.Methods and analysesRIPTRANS is a multicentre, sham-controlled, parallel group, randomised superiority trial comparing RIPC intervention versus sham-intervention in brain-dead organ donors scheduled to donate at least one kidney. Recipients of the organs (kidney, liver, pancreas, heart, lungs) from a randomised donor will be included provided that they give written informed consent. The RIPC intervention is performed by inflating a thigh tourniquet to 300 mm Hg 4 times for 5 min. The intervention is done two times: first right after the declaration of brain death and second immediately before transferring the donor to the operating theatre. The sham group receives the tourniquet, but it is not inflated. The primary endpoint is delayed graft function (DGF) in kidney allografts. Secondary endpoints include short-term functional outcomes of transplanted organs, rejections and graft survival in various time points up to 20 years. We aim to show that RIPC reduces the incidence of DGF from 25% to 15%. According to this, the sample size is set to 500 kidney transplant recipients.Ethics and disseminationThis study has been approved by Helsinki University Hospital Ethics Committee and Helsinki University Hospital’s Institutional Review Board. The study protocol was be presented at the European Society of Organ Transplantation congress in Copenhagen 14−15 September 2019. The study results will be submitted to an international peer-reviewed scientific journal for publication.Trial registration numberNCT03855722.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Eric Harrison ◽  
Sarah Meram ◽  
Xiangrui Li ◽  
Patrick Medado ◽  
Morgan B White ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Non-invasive finger-cuff monitors measuring cardiac index and vascular tone (SVRI) classify emergency department (ED) patients with acute heart failure (AHF) into three otherwise-indistinguishable subgroups. Our goals were to validate these hemodynamic profiles in an external cohort and assess their association with clinical outcomes. Methods AHF patients (n=257) from five EDs were prospectively enrolled in the validation cohort (VC). Cardiac index and SVRI were measured with a ClearSight finger-cuff monitor (formerly NexFin, Edwards Lifesciences) as in a previous study (derivation cohort, DC, n=127). A control cohort (CC, n=127) of ED patients with sepsis was drawn from the same study as the DC. K-means cluster analysis previously derived two-dimensional (cardiac index and SVRI) hemodynamic profiles in the DC and CC (k=3 profiles each). The VC was subgrouped de novo into three analogous profiles by unsupervised K-means consensus clustering. PERMANOVA tested whether VC profiles 1-3 differed from profiles 1-3 in the DC and CC, by multivariate group composition of cardiac index and vascular tone. Profiles in the VC were compared by a primary outcome of 90-day mortality and a 30-day ranked composite secondary outcome (death, mechanical cardiac support, intubation, new/emergent dialysis, coronary intervention/surgery) as time-to-event (survival analysis) and binary events (odds ratio, OR). Descriptive statistics were used to compare profiles by two validated risk scores for the primary outcome, and one validated score for the secondary outcome. Results The VC had median age 60 years (interquartile range {49-67}), and was 45% (n=116) female. Multivariate profile composition by cardiac index and vascular tone differed significantly between VC profiles 1-3 and CC profiles 1-3 (p=0.001, R2=0.159). A difference was not detected between profiles in the VC vs. the DC (p=0.59, R2=0.016). VC profile 3 had worse 90-day survival than profiles 1 or 2 (HR = 4.8, 95%CI 1.4-17.1). The ranked secondary outcome was more likely in profile 1 (OR = 10.0, 1.2-81.2) and profile 3 (12.8, 1.7-97.9) compared to profile 2. Diabetes prevalence and blood urea nitrogen were lower in the high-risk profile 3 (p<0.05). No significant differences between profiles were observed for other clinical variables or the 3 clinical risk scores. Conclusions Hemodynamic profiles in ED patients with AHF, by non-invasive finger-cuff monitoring of cardiac index and vascular tone, were replicated de novo in an external cohort. Profiles showed significantly different risks of clinically-important adverse patient outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-249
Author(s):  
Mohammad Yousuf Rathor ◽  
Azarisman SM Shah ◽  
Nur Raziana Bt Rozi ◽  
Che Rosle Draman ◽  
Wan Ahmad Syahril

Kidney transplantation (KT) is currently the most realistic treatment option for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) as it enables them to live longer and provides better quality of life post-transplantation. Before the 1960s, all these patients would die as there was no treatment available. It is the commonest solid organ transplantation carried out in the world at the moment. Organs are harvested from living or cadaveric donors, with living kidney donor organs generally functioning better and for longer periods of time compared to the latter. Issues surrounding organ transplantation in general and kidney transplantation in particular, are fraught with ethical dilemmas due to the shortage of organs, the logistics behind the acquisition of organs, use of living donors including minors and the black market that has sprouted thereof. Entwined in this quagmire are the legal, social and psychological consequences for the individuals involved and the society at large. It is further compounded by religious concerns, which have a significant influence on the society’s acceptance of the practice of organ donation. The practice of organ transplantation is generally accepted by most Islamic scholars as it is concordant to the objectives of Islamic Law (maqasid al Sharī’ah) which prioritize the preservation of human life. However, resistances do arise from some jurists and even physicians of the same Islamic faith despite a fatwas decreeing that organ and tissue transplantations are permissible in Islam under certain conditions. The take-up of organ-donation is still largely poor especially among Muslims. This article therefore hopes to explore the various moral and ethical issues surrounding KT as well as the Islamic viewpoints emanating from it. We hope that this knowledge and understanding will benefit both health-care personnel and the public in general. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(2) 2021 p.241-249


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