Organ Procurement From Donors After Brain Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Experience of a High Prevalence Country.
Exp Clin Transplant
; 20(4): 420-424, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1744698
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
Our aim was to compare the donation process before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in an organ procurement unit in Iran and to discuss different strategies to address the impact of the pandemic on the donation process. MATERIALS ANDMETHODS:
All activities including donor detection, donor selection, family approach, donors characteristics, rate of organs per donor, and types of organs were compared between 2 intervals over 18 months (March 2020 to June 2021 [during the COVID19 pandemic] vs November 2018 to February 2020 [before the pandemic]).RESULTS:
Before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 218 and 137 brain dead donors with mean age of 42.6 ± 14.5 and 42.8 ± 15.5 years, respectively (P = .82). The prevalence of tumors leading to brain death decreased by more than half during the COVID-19 pandemic (P = .04). There was a 52% increase in cardiac death before organ retrieval during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching 38% from 25% before COVID-19. During the 2 intervals, the number of organs per donor was 2.3 ± 1.2 and 2.2 ± 1.2 (P = .52). The rate of actual to potential donors before and during the pandemic was significantly different, with 42.16 ± 7.8% before and 29.9 ± 4.8% during the pandemic, mostly as a result of unsuitable donors. The time to obtain family consent during the COVID-19 pandemic was 35.1 ± 8.5 hours, which was a significantly longer length of time than before the pandemic (21.3 ± 12.3 hours; P = .008).CONCLUSIONS:
In our organ procurement unit, which encompasses a population of 5.5 million in Tehran, Iran, the number of actual donors was reduced dramatically during the studied pandemic period. However, despite a high workload, all transplant centers and organ procurement units in Iran worked to identify and transplant the available organs to reduce wait list mortality.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Tissue and Organ Procurement
/
Organ Transplantation
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
Exp Clin Transplant
Journal subject:
Transplantation
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ect.2021.0398
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