Non
Heart Beating Donors Research Project
at The Alfred Hospital
A new strategy for preserving organs for use in organ transplantation.
Sections:
- Summary
- Aims of the Project
- Significance of the Project
- Article from Internal Medicine Journal
Organ transplantation is considered one of the miracles of modern medicine. However, shortage of donor organs remains a serious problem and the disparity between the number of patients on the transplant waiting lists and the number of organ donors in Australia, continues to grow; thus new strategies are needed to increase donor numbers and reduce waiting list deaths.
Currently, the majority of donor organs come from donors who are 'brain dead' but whose heart is still beating. Non Heart Beating Donors (NHBD) have been suggested as a 'new' source of organs to potentially alleviate the donor shortage. Recent advances in technology have made the procurement of organs from a NHBD a clinical reality. The use of NHBD for kidney transplantation has proved possible within Australia, but the feasibility of obtaining multiple organs for transplantation from a NHBD has not been evaluated.
This project will assess the practicality of a system that will facilitate the appropriate preservation, then procurement, of kidneys, livers, lungs and hearts from a NHBD, resulting in the successful transplantation of the organs into multiple recipients. As well as increasing overall transplant numbers, the development of multi-organ NHBD preservation and procurement technology could also make organ donation more acceptable for communities where cultural, religious and/or technological reasons have previously prevented consideration of organ donation.
1. Confirm the feasibility of a theoretical technique of multi-organ NHBD preservation, procurement and transplantation.
2. Formulate a template for the development of a human clinical multi-organ NHBD program at The Alfred Hospital.
3. Expansion of the clinical multi-organ NHBD program to other institutions statewide and nationally.
Despite many strategies to increase organ donation, including the formation of a national organ donor registry in 2001 and improved public awareness through education, the donor rate in Australia has remained static since 1993. In 2002, there were approximately 2000 Australians on organ transplant waiting lists. In the same year, there were 206 organ donors contributing to 729 solid organ transplants, however, 1000 patients continued to wait for donor organs and 180 (15%) died without receiving a transplant.
Apart from the waiting list mortality, there are financial costs to the community associated with a long wait for donor organs. The cost for patients being maintained on dialysis while waiting for a kidney transplant has been estimated at $42.5 Million annually and the cost benefit of transplantation versus dialysis has been proven. Patients waiting for heart, lung and liver transplantation also require long term, high cost medical interventions and care to support them during their waiting period.
Currently, an organ donor generally must meet the strict medical and legal criteria of 'brain death' before being deemed suitable. New and emerging technologies have made it increasingly possible to utilize organs from Non Heart Beating Donors (NHBD), potentially expanding the donor pool. This will result in reduced waiting-list time and deaths, as well as reduced costs associated with dialysis and long term medical care.
Organ donation from NHBD may be more readily accepted by those in the community who find the concept of 'brain death' difficult to accept and may also provide an avenue for those who, in principle, agree with organ donation but for religious or cultural reasons are unable to donate under the current criteria. The ability to obtain multiple organs from a NHBD facilitates multiple transplants (up to 7 recipients per donor). The success of this project will be measured by the increased number of transplant recipients, with flow on benefits for the whole Australian community.
Article from Internal Medicine Journal
The following link will take you to an article published in the Internal Medicine Journal 2004. Written by G. I. Snell, B. J. Levvey and T. J. Williams, it emphasizes the importance of non-heart beating organ donations.
Click here to view the article.
To register as an organ donor online, please click here.
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Donations for the Non Heart Beating Donor Research and the Heart Start Units are Tax-Deductible and should be sent to: |
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Have
A Heart, Give A Part Rotary Club of Williamstown, P.O. Box 111, Williamstown 3016. |