ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Brain-death donation became legal in Korea after "The law of organ transplantation" was established at 2000. Therefore, in this study, we report on the clinical analysis of brain-death donors at Ajou University Hospital since the Korean Network for Organ Sharing (KONOS) was launched in the year 2000. METHODS: We reviewed 90 brain-death donors who were managed at Ajou University Hospital from 2000 to 2009 and we retrospectively analyzed the clinical characteristics. RESULTS: The number of brain-death donors was 29 from 2000 to 2005 and 61 from 2006 to 2009, and this showed an increasing tendency. Forty-three brain-death donors (47.8%) were detected at our hospital and 47 donors (52.2%) were from referring hospitals. The percent of brain-death donors at our hospital was 31.0% from 2000 to 2005 and 55.7% from 2006 to 2009 (P=0.042). The mean age of the brain-death donors was 36.3 years (range: 8 months~70 years) and the fifth decade was the most common (25.6%). The gender ratio showed significant difference (P=0.001); there were 60 male donors (66.7%) and there were 30 females (33.3%). The most common cause of brain-death was cerebrovascular disease/stroke (48 donors, 53.3%) followed by traffic accident (15 donors, 16.7%). The most common blood type was Rh+ O (35.6%). The mean number of harvested organs was 3.9 and one donor (1.1%) had the largest number of harvested organs (9) (liver, 2 kidneys, pancreas, heart, lung, 2 corneas, tissue). The mean time to procurement was 3.6 days (range: 2~24 days). CONCLUSIONS: We recommend active discovery and evaluation of brain-death donors in all the hospitals including the hospital organ procurement organization (HOPO).