PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lacroix, Julie D.
AU  - Mahoney, John E.
AU  - Knoll, Greg A.
TI  - Renal transplantation using non-heart-beating donors: a potential solution to the organ donor shortage in Canada
DP  - 2004 Feb 01
TA  - Canadian Journal of Surgery
PG  - 10--14
VI  - 47
IP  - 1
4099  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/47/1/10.short
4100  - http://canjsurg.ca/content/47/1/10.full
SO  - CAN J SURG2004 Feb 01; 47
AB  - Introduction: There is a chronic shortage of cadaveric organ donors for renal transplantation, which might be solved by the use of non-heart-beating donors (patients who suffer cardiac arrest and whose kidneys are harvested subsequently when irreversible heart and respiratory function occur). We carried out a chart review to determine whether the renal transplantation rate would improve if a non-heart-beating donor program was introduced at a Canadian centre.Methods: We reviewed the charts of all 1547 patients who died in the emergency department or intensive care unit of the Ottawa Hospital, a tertiary care centre serving 1.2 million people in eastern Ontario, between January 1999 and May 2001. The number of potential non-heart-beating donors was determined by the use of predefined criteria. The number of additional kidneys that could be obtained with a non-heart-beating donor program was estimated and compared to the actual number of kidneys procured from conventional brain-dead donors during the same period. The potential increase in the renal transplantation rate was calculated.Results: There were 83 potential non-heart-beating donors during the 29-month study period. The mean (and standard deviation) age of the donors was 40.6 (13.1) years, and 20% were female. The mean serum creatinine value was 75 (29) μmol/L; 44.6% of donors died secondary to trauma. We estimated that the use of non-heart-beating donors would have provided 14 to 41 additional donors during the study period (12–34 kidneys/yr). The cadaveric renal transplantation rate would have increased between 30% and 87%.Conclusion: The cadaveric renal transplantation rate could improve significantly if non-heart-beating donors were used in Canadian hospitals.