organ donation

organ donation, the act of giving one or more organs (or parts thereof), without compensation, for transplantation into someone else. Organ donation is a very personal yet complex decision, intertwined with medical, legal, religious, cultural, and ethical issues. Today organ donation, strictly defined, encompasses the donation and transplantation of the heart, intestines, kidneys, liver, lungs, and pancreas (e.g., the islets of Langerhans).

Donors

Donated organs come either from a deceased donor or from a still-living donor. Living donors are capable of donating a kidney, part of the intestine, part of the liver, part of a lung, or part of the pancreas. Deceased donors are classified according to (1) donation after brain death or (2) donation after cardiac death. Brain death is defined as the total cessation of brain function; it is impossible to return to life after brain death. Cardiac death occurs after irreversible cessation of cardiac function.

People of all ages can consider themselves potential organ donors. The few absolute medical contraindications to donation include HIV-positive status, active cancer, and systemic infection. Other conditions that may render a person ineligible to donate organs include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, sickle cell anemia, or a history of intravenous drug abuse. Potential donors are evaluated for suitability on the basis of their medical history.

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Organ demand

In 1988 the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), a national computerized system, was implemented to track organ donation in the United States. In its first two decades of operation, the OPTN recorded the procurement of organs from some 125,000 deceased and 100,000 living donors. During that period of time, organ donation increased dramatically in the West. For example, in 1988 in the United States about 9,500 kidneys were recovered from donors, but in 2008 alone more than 20,200 kidneys were recovered. Likewise, in 1988 approximately 580 pancreases were recovered, but in 2008 some 1,830 were recovered. For some organs, however, the increase in donation has been relatively small; for example, nearly 1,800 hearts were recovered in 1988, and about 2,200 were recovered in 2008. Thus, the demand for transplants continues to far exceed the supply of organs.

Great efforts have been made in the Western world over the past decades to increase the number of deceased donors, but the rate varies greatly (e.g., in 2009 there were approximately 34 donors per million persons in Spain and 6 donors per million persons in Greece). As a result of the growing need for organs for transplantation, living donation has increased. Most living donations are to family members or close friends, but some “altruistic” or “nondirected” donors do not know the recipients. Potential living donors must undergo a thorough physical and psychological workup in order to help ensure that no adverse outcome will occur before, during, or after donation.

Organ procurement

In the United States, local organ-procurement organizations (OPOs) coordinate deceased donation. OPOs evaluate potential donors, discuss donation with surviving relatives, and arrange for the surgical removal and transport of donated organs. Organs in good condition are removed in a sterile surgical procedure; all incisions are closed, so the donor can still have an open-casket funeral. After organ removal, the donor is taken off artificial life support. The organs to be donated are flushed with, and stored in, chilled preservation solutions (4 °C [39.2 °F]). Preserving organ function is key, and long-term storage is not possible; the organs must be transplanted within 6 to 72 hours after removal, depending on the organ (the heart and lungs may be viable for only 4 to 5 hours). In the United States the OPTN is used to match donated organs with prospective recipients.

Legal, medical, and social issues

Legislative approaches to deceased donation differ, but they most commonly involve some form of consent (either presumed or explicit) or dissent. Under U.S. law, deceased donation remains a consent system. Surviving relatives generally retain the right to dissent even if the potential donor gave explicit consent via a driver’s license, living will, or similar document. In some states, however, those laws are changing, with movement toward preventing a relative from overriding an individual’s decision to donate his organs if the desire to donate has been specified in a legal document. In the United Kingdom, deceased donation is voluntary, and no consent is presumed. In addition, legal documentation of a person’s decision to donate cannot be overturned by the family in the United Kingdom. Organ donation laws are evolving in places such as India and China, which have religious and cultural systems that differ substantially from those common to countries in the West.

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The benefits and risks for both the living donor and the recipient must be weighed carefully. A healthy donor always faces an unnecessary major surgical procedure and even the possibility of death. The chance of dying as a result of donating a kidney is about 1 in 8,000–10,000; of donating a small portion of the liver, about 1 in 1,000; and of donating a large portion of the liver, as high as 1 in 100–500. In addition, living donors may be unable to maintain life or medical insurance or disability coverage at the same level or rate that they had prior to donation. Financial concerns may be exacerbated by a possible delay in returning to work because of unforeseen problems. Some countries have established programs to reimburse qualified living donors for travel and other expenses. Follow-up registries for living donors, which track quality of life and other factors after donation, exist in only a few countries.

Illegal organ trade and trafficking have resulted in physical and financial exploitation of some living donors and may have contributed to an occasional loss of faith in the medical system. Yet despite the challenges, organ transplants offer recipients a new chance at healthy, productive, and normal lives and return them to their families, friends, and communities.

Whether the donor is deceased or living, organ donation remains a profoundly generous and life-affirming option. Many families of deceased donors acknowledge that the “gift of life” made possible by organ donation helps them cope with their tragic loss. Likewise, most religions (including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism) support organ donation as a charitable act of love and giving.