Organ transplantation: present scenario and future strategies for transplant programme (specially cadaveric) in India: socio-administrative respects

Organ transplantation was enacted by a law "Transplantation of Human Organ Act" in 1994 but still, getting the consent from the relatives of brain dead person is a very difficult task and hence cadaveric transplant accounts for a minimum number. In India, most of the transplantations carried out are related to living donor and very few are cadaveric. The poor status of cadaver transplantation may be attributed to the moral, emotional and religious beliefs and taboos that inhibit the relatives of the deceased to come forward to donate organ(s) of a brain dead person.Non-existence of a trained transplant co-ordinator who is the backbone of any successful transplant programme is another reason for poor response in cadaver transplantation. The great task is to motivate and prepare the relatives for organ donation of their near and dear ones. Transplant co-ordinators are being prepared for motivating individuals or relatives for donation. To promote human organ transplantation government's initiative is very important. Mass media supported by the government can develop better awareness among the people. Non-government organisations (NGOs) can help in the similar ways. All hospitals are not authorised for the procedure of human organ transplantation. Other hospitals can help the process by informing the authorised hospitals about recent admission of potential donor (brainstem death). Role of transplant coordinator is crucial. He/she is the real inspiration to make agree the relatives for organ donation. Overall success of transplant programme is based on co-ordinated activity. Involvement of all agencies to motivate the person to pledge for organ donation during his/her life time is the first and the foremost requirement for successful planning and programme of organ transplantation.     

Authorisation, altruism and compulsion in the organ donation debate

The report from the Organ Donation Taskforce looking at the potential impact of an opt-out system for deceased donor organ donation in the UK, published in November 2008, is probably the most comprehensive and systematic inquiry to date into the issues and considerations which might affect the availability of deceased donor organs for clinical transplantation. By the end of a thorough and transparent process, a clear consensus was reached. The taskforce rejected the idea of an opt-out system. In this article we acknowledge the life saving potential of organ transplants and seek to highlight the difficulties that arise when the issue of organ shortage competes with concerns over choice and authorisation in the context of deceased donor organ donation.     

Approach to management of the heartbeating 'brain dead' organ donor

In recent years, transplantation has assumed an important role in the treatment of patients with end-stage diseases of most major organ systems. However, the greatest limitation in organ transplantation today is organ supply. Among factors that can affect the organ supply favorably, donor management has received the least attention. This review addresses management of the multi-organ donor within the intensive care unit. With an increased awareness of donor management issues and the application of a rational physiological approach, the supply of functional organs for transplantation can be increased.     

Communication strategies for organ donation

A country, state or hospital may have the latest medical technology and infrastructure as well as qualified professionals for organ transplantation, but unless there is an adequate donor population the waiting lists for transplants will continue to be long and for some patients, hopeless. Public and professional awareness programmes are key factor in the donation process. Social education that explains the life-saving benefits of organ transplantation, the enormous need for organ donation, the concept of brain death and religious teachings related to these issues is vital for creating a conducive environment for the organ transplant co-ordinator or physician soliciting the donation. The education of hospital medical, nursing and administrative personnel is also essential to both miximise opportunities for donation, as well as to prevent loss of potential organs after donor consent. Other target populations are medical examiners or coroners, and police personnel under whose jurisdiction the donations occur, as their co-operation and guidance is necessary for meeting statutory requirements. The involvement of government officials and politicians is also valuable, as their active intervention is essential for the introduction and amendment of rules and laws to promote the donation and transplantation of organs. The present paper describes communication strategies for the development of an efficient education plan that will provide information about organ transplantation, explain the desired outcome, address potential queries, misconceptions or obstacles, and identify potential sources of support.     

“Because you're worth it?” The taking and selling of transplantable organs

In the UK, the legal processes underpinning the procurement system for cadaveric organs for transplantation and research after death are under review. The review originated after media reports of hospitals, such as Alder Hey and Bristol, retaining organs after death without the full, informed consent of relatives. The organ procurement systems for research and transplantation are separate and distinct, but given that legal change will be applicable to both, some have argued now is the time to introduce alternative organ transplant procurement systems such as presumed consent or incentive based schemes (despite inconclusive British and American research on the status of public attitudes). Findings are reported in this paper from qualitative and quantitative research undertaken in Scotland in order to ascertain the public acceptability of different procurement systems. Nineteen in depth interviews carried out with donor families about their experiences of donating the organs of the deceased covered their views of organ retention, presumed consent, and financial incentives. This led onto a representative interview survey of 1009 members of the Scottish public. The originality of the triangulated qualitative and quantitative study offers exploration of alternative organ procurement systems from different "sides of the fence". The findings suggest that the legal changes taking place are appropriate in clarifying the role of the family but can go further in strengthening the choice of the individual to donate.     

Optimal management of brain-dead organ donor

Maintaining a brain stem–dead (BSD) donor is specialized science. It is a daunting task as they are fragile patients who need to be handled with utmost care owing to extreme haemodynamically instability and need the best of monitoring for maintenance of organs. To ensure a successful transplant, a BSD donor first needs to be identified on time. This requires scrupulous monitoring of neurologically compromised patients who tend to be the most frequent organ donors. Once the donor is identified, an all-out effort should be made to legally obtain consent for the donation. This may require numerous sessions of counselling of the relatives. It needs to be performed tactfully, displaying the best of intentions. It is important to understand the physiology of a brain-dead individual. A cascade of changes occurs in BSD donor which result in a catastrophic plummeting of the clinical condition of the donor. All organ systems are involved in this clinical chaos, and best possible clinical support of all organ systems should be available and extended to the donor. Organ support includes cardiovascular, pulmonary, temperature, glycaemic, metabolic and hormonal. This article has been written as a follow-up article of previously published article on identifying an organ donor. It intends to give the reader a concept of what the BSD donor undergoes after brain death and as to how to maintain and preserve various organs for donation for successful transplantation of maximum organs.     

Laparoscopic live donor nephrectomy

With the number of patients presently awaiting renal transplantation exceeding the number of cadaveric organs available, there is an increasing reliance on live renal donation. Of the 11,869 renal transplants performed in 2002 in the US, 52.6% were living donors from the United Network for Organ Sharing Registry. Renal allografts from living donors provide: superior immediate long-term function; require less waiting time and are more cost-effective than those from cadaveric donors. However, anticipation of postoperative pain and temporary occupational disability may dissuade many potential donors. Additionally, some recipients hesitate to accept a living donor kidney due to suffering that would be endured by the donor. It is a unique medical situation when a young, completely healthy donor undergoes a major surgical procedure to provide an organ for transplantation. It is mandatory to offer a surgical technique, which is safe and with minimal complications. It is also obvious for any organ transplantation, that the integrity of the organ remain intact, thus, enabling its successful transplantation into the recipient. An acceptably short ischemia time and adequate lengths of ureter and renal vasculature are favored. Many centers are performing laparoscopic live donor nephrectomy in an effort to ease convalescence of renal donors. This may encourage the consideration of live donation by recipients and potential donors.     

Factors affecting the waiting time of cadaveric kidney transplant candidates in the United States.

OBJECTIVE--To evaluate the relative impact of various factors that could account for differences in waiting time of cadaveric kidney transplant candidates (eg, black and sensitized patients). DESIGN.--A cohort study using multivariate analyses to identify associations between 36 patient, donor, and center factors with waiting time for all US cadaveric kidney transplant candidates listed between October 1, 1987, and June 30, 1990. SETTING--All US kidney transplant centers. PATIENTS--The study included 23,468 cadaveric renal transplant candidates on active waiting status. RESULTS--The patient characteristics most significantly associated with increased waiting time (adjusted for all other variables) were immunologic and included presensitization to HLA antigens, O or B blood type, candidacy for a repeat transplantation, and expression of rare HLA-A or HLA-B antigen phenotypes. Nonimmunologic factors also affected waiting times, which were significantly shorter for patients younger than 15 years vs those aged 15 through 44 years (8.4 vs 12.9 months, respectively; P less than .0001), for those listed at multiple centers vs one center (7.0 vs 13.3 months, respectively; P less than .0001), or for white vs black patients (11.9 vs 15.4 months, respectively; P less than .0001). Local transplant center characteristics associated with a significantly shorter waiting time included a small number of transplantation candidates, a high (greater than 35 per million population) local kidney organ recovery rate, and an approved variance from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network allocation algorithm. CONCLUSIONS--The time renal transplant candidates must wait for kidney transplantation is influenced by several factors in addition to those expected due to immunologic reasons of donor incompatibility, the algorithms used for organ distribution, or the effectiveness of local kidney recovery. The impact of these factors should be considered as the current US system for allocating scarce donor organs for kidney transplantation is modified.     

Object-oriented development of a concept learning system for time-centered clinical data

A concept learning system is expected to be a powerful tool for filtering and analyzing a large amount of data in a variety of scientific fields. A simple application of it to clinical data, however, fails to mine medical information and knowledge. One of the major obstacles in mining a clinical database is time, which is a very important concept in clinical medicine. To be successful in data mining in clinical medicine, an efficient model of clinical data with time and a flexible concept learning system augmented to handle the model are both necessary. Herein we modeled clinical data to easily express and manipulate time and extended a concept learning system to utilize a time-centered clinical data model. The modified concept learning system is based on themessage-value method rather than the traditionalattribute-value method. The object-oriented technology was of great help in modeling time-centered clinical data and in developing a modified concept learning system.     

Factors potentially affecting the function of kidney grafts

Background Donor and recipient risk factors on graft function have been well characterized.The contribution of demographic factors,such as age,gender,and other potential factors of donor and recipient at the time of transplantation on the function of a graft is much less well understood.In this study,we analyzed the effects of factors such as age,gender,etc.,on the short-term and long-term graft function in kidney transplant recipients from living donor.Methods A total of 335 living donors and their recipients,who had kidney transplantation in our center from May 2004 to December 2009,were included.Serum creatinine level was used as the assessment criterion (serum creatinine level lower than 115 mmol/L is normal).Factors related to graft function such as age,gender,blood relation by consanguinity,human leukocyte antigen (HLA) mismatch,ABO type,etc.,were analyzed separately.Results Donor age is the key factor affecting both the short-term and long-term function of a grafted kidney from a living donor.The group with donors younger than 48 years showed the best kidney function post transplantation.Match of gender and age is another important factor that influences the function of grafted kidney from a living donor.The older donor to younger recipient group had the worst outcome after kidney transplantation.After 36 months post transplantation,female donor to male recipient group had worse kidney function compared to other groups.We also found that calcinerin inhibitor used in the maintenance period may influence the function of a grafted kidney.No significant statistical differences were found in consanguinity,blood type,and mismatch of HLA.Conclusions Donor age is an important factor affecting the function of a grafted kidney from a living donor.We also recommend taking nephron,immunology factor,infection,and demographic information all into consideration when assessing the outcome of kidney transplantation.     

Living-related kidney donation

Living renal donation is an effective means to expand the organ donor pool and allow more transplants to be performed at greater convenience for the recipient and with greater long-term success. Risks to the recipient appear to be minimal as long as careful donor screening is employed. Living donation has been implemented in extra-renal transplantation more recently. While the experience is limited so far, living donation is likely to remain an important option for liver and lung recipients.     

Infections transmitted from donors to recipients following organ transplantation

There is an ever-increasing gap between the number of donors and those waiting for organ grafts, resulting in increased waiting times and mortality on transplant waiting lists. Consequently, every potential donor must be considered for possible transplantation even if they are outside the conventional donor criteria. To address this imbalance, organs are currently transplanted from living donors, older donors, haemodynamically unstable and non-heart-beating donors, and donors with prior infections. There is a potential to transmit infections and, to a lesser extent, malignancy from the donor organ to the immunosuppressed recipient, and this may also have an effect on subsequent organ function in the recipient. Thus, transmission of infections from organ donors to recipients represents low but serious potential risks that must be weighed against a candidate's risk of dying before a transplant becomes available.     

我国人体器官捐献的激励机制研究

可供移植的器官较少是长期困绕我国器官移植工作开展的重要因素之一,如何切实有效地增加供体器官的数量成为开展器官移植工作亟待解决的重要问题。结合我国器官移植的具体实践,从理论意义和现实意义两方面论证了建立器官捐献激励机制的必要性,阐释了器官捐献激励机制的主要内容,并对器官捐献激励机制的实现途径进行了积极探索。     

Progress in abdominal organ transplantation

The excellent results of vascularized organ transplantation have resulted in an increasing number of end-stage organ failure patients seeking such treatment. The results of organ transplantation depend on a number of factors--the quality of the donor (and an organ), living vs. deceased donation, magnitude of ischemic injury (and its prevention), and recipient-dependent factors. Ischemia/reperfusion injury in organ transplantation is a multifactorial process, which may lead to delayed graft function. In addition, surgical and preservation techniques, type of immunosuppressive regimens, complications after transplantation and post-transplant management may also have a significant impact on short- and long-term results of transplantation. In this paper we describe advances in transplantation in recent years, with particular emphasis on kidney, liver, intestines, whole pancreas and pancreatic islets.     

Donor availability as the primary determinant of the future of heart transplantation

Heart transplantation has now achieved a therapeutic status similar to that of cadaveric renal transplantation. Depending on patient selection criteria, it is estimated that as many as 15,000 people per year could conceivably benefit from a heart transplant, but the actual number of persons who will benefit is severely constrained by donor supply. Availability of heart donors was estimated based on data obtained on 1,955 organ donors in the United States. The results show that because of age and other contraindications, only 400 to 1,100 viable donor hearts may be available each year. Donor supply is the most critical determinant of the future of heart transplantation since it will dictate the number of transplants performed, the survival of transplant recipients, the total program expenditures associated with heart transplantation, the nature of the legal and ethical issues involved, the number of cardiac transplant programs required to make optimal use of the available donor hearts, and the future role of mechanical circulatory support systems.     

Non-heart beating organ donation: old procurement strategy--new ethical problems

The imbalance between supply of organs for transplantation and demand for them is widening. Although the current international drive to re-establish procurement via non-heart beating organ donation/donor (NHBOD) is founded therefore on necessity, the process may constitute a desirable outcome for patient and family when progression to brain stem death (BSD) does not occur and conventional organ retrieval from the beating heart donor is thereby prevented. The literature accounts of this practice, however, raise concerns that risk jeopardising professional and public confidence in the broader transplant programme. This article focuses on these clinical, ethical, and legal issues in the context of other approaches aimed at increasing donor numbers. The feasibility of introducing such an initiative will hinge on the ability to reassure patients, families, attendant staff, professional bodies, the wider public, law enforcement agencies, and the media that practitioners are working within explicit guidelines which are both ethically and legally defensible.     

将脑死亡患者作为移植器官供体的伦理学研究

脑死亡患者作为器官移植供体来源的提法逐渐引起人们的高度关注,但也遇到了诸多困境和问题,如脑死亡患者的死亡判定、脑死亡患者的意志遵循、脑死亡患者供体器官的管理、脑死亡患者供体器官的经济补偿等,结合我国社会实际情况和医疗环境,提出解决问题的建议：借鉴国外器官移植相关法律,严格遵守《人体器官移植条例》,完善立法和人体器官移植质量监控。     

Assessing liver dysfunction in cirrhosis: Role of the model for end-stage liver disease and its derived systems

The model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) has replaced the role of the Child–Turcotte–Pugh system as a more commonly used system in evaluating the severity of liver dysfunction in patients with chronic liver disease, owing to its superior ability to predict survival. The United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) in the USA has used the MELD system for prioritizing donor grafts in advanced cirrhotic patients awaiting liver transplantation since 2002. Serum sodium level is another important prognostic predictor in cirrhosis. Consequently, by incorporating serum sodium into the original MELD, the MELD-Na, MELDNa, the MELD-to-sodium ratio (MESO) index, and the ReFit MELDNa were proposed in an attempt to improve the predictive ability of the original MELD. Nevertheless, there are some limitations of the MELD-based systems that need to be refined. The MELD-based systems merely use laboratory data as parameters for the equation, therefore, any lack in unification and standardization of laboratory methods will result in inconsistent data that affect the prioritization of liver transplantation. Furthermore, the MELD system includes creatinine as a parameter, and serum creatinine level may represent different degrees of renal dysfunction in men and women. Therefore, these limitations may compromise the fair process of organ allocation for female cirrhotic patients. Currently, the application of the MELD system has been extended to tumor staging of hepatocellular carcinoma. Several studies have replaced the Child–Turcotte–Pugh system with the MELD as a parameter, indicating that the use of different criteria of liver dysfunction in cancer staging may enhance prognostic accuracy. Although the outcome data of the modified staging systems need to be confirmed, the concept of using the MELD as a reference system for evaluating the severity of liver dysfunction has globally become an important issue.     

病案信息挖掘在医院管理中的应用与研究

病案信息挖掘被认为是医院管理过程中重要的数据依托和信息来源,在医院临床、教学和科研中发挥着重要的作用。加强病案管理和信息挖掘,必须坚持以人为本,树立为医院管理服务、为临床一线服务、为广大患者服务的理念。本研究依据现有病案资料,应用多种数理统计方法,从高寒作战、传染病流行、损伤与中毒等特殊事件的专科病案着手,将病案中蕴藏的大量信息挖掘出来应用于医院管理,提高了病案的使用价值,为医院管理决策和广大患者提供了信息服务,推动了边疆地区医院建设和社会稳定。     

Relapse risk assessment of transplantation for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia

Objective To analyse the risk factors of relapse before bone marrow transplantation (BMT) and to present the prognostic information as good as possible. Methods A total of 3142 patients, who underwent the allogeneic blood or bone marrow transplantation between 1989 and 1997 and were documented in the European Group for Blood and Marrow transplantation (EBMT), were included. Six possible risk factors including type of donor, stage of disease, age, gender, donor?-recipient sex combination and the waiting time from diagnosis to transplation of relapse were considered. The time to relapse was analysed by Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression with stratification on prognostic factors that did not satisfy the Proportional Hazard Assumption. Results An amount of 447 patients relapsed out of all 3142 patients. The relapse rate was 14.2%. Type of donor and stage of disease showed a clear prognostic effect, but failed the proportional hazard assumption. Therefore, the data were stratified on the combination of type of donor and stage of disease. Within these strata an additional significant effect of age could be observed. Relative risk of age ≥40 vs age <40 was 1.32 (95% confidence interval 1.09-1.59). The prognostic model is summarized graphically. Conclusions The combination of type of donor, stage of disease and age of recipient at transplantation are important prognostic factors for relapse after BMT.