ABSTRACT
To bridge the gap between demand and supply of organs, deceased donors with extreme ages can be utilized. The object of this study was to compare elderly with non-elderly donors and to assess the predictors of organ utilization or wastage. This was a retrospective chart analysis. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis of cohorts was carried out to predict organ utilization or wastage. Of the 716 deceased donors, 16.2% were elderly (≥60 years) and 83.8% were not elderly (≤59 years). Donors in the elderly cohort were more likely to be diabetic, hypertensive, overweight, and smokers compared with non-elderly donors. They had deranged terminal creatinine and succumbed to cerebrovascular accident or intracerebral hemorrhage. They had a high kidney donor risk index (KDRI) of 1.83 ± 0.46. Those in the younger donor cohort, were more likely to have succumbed to road traffic accident-associated traumatic brain injury, were subjected to more efforts to revive them in the intensive care unit via cardiopulmonary resuscitation, had deranged liver function tests, and had a KDRI of 0.93 ± 0.28. The kidney discard rate (KDR) and liver discard rate (LDR) in the elderly donors was 50% and 8.6%, respectively (vis-a-vis the non-elderly at 13.3 % and 7.5%). The KDR was significantly higher than the LDR in elderly donors. The main reason for this was the high number of "marginal kidneys". We revealed that elderly donors formed a significant proportion of deceased donors. The utilization of the liver from deceased donors was more frequent compared with the kidney.
