Our experience with organ procurement from hemodynamically unstable brain dead patients

Effective organ procurement is the result of meticulous care to brain dead patients. Hemodynamic instability may occur in these patients and, if not managed and treated carefully, may lead to loss of precious organs. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the hemodynamic status of brain dead patients and its effect on organ donation.

We retrospectively studied all hospitalization records of brain dead patients at Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Tehran, Iran. We reviewed the patients' status during hospitalization for organ retrieval for their homodynamic condition to see if they had stable or unstable condition. We then followed all cases to see if the hemodynamic condition of the patients had an effect on organ harvest result. For data analysis we used Chi-square test.

In the studied brain dead patients, 95.2% were hemodynamically unstable. Organ procurement was successful in 87.2% of unstable patients. Organ procurement was successful in all patients with stable condition. Unstable hemodynamic condition of the patients had no effect on the rate of successful organ retrieval (p=0.588).

The majority of brain dead patients in our center were in unstable homodynamic state. Such condition may have no signi fi cant effect on success rate of organ procurement. Proper care for brain dead patients would increase the success rate of organ procurement even in hemodynamically unstable patients.