Out-hospital donors after cardiac death in Madrid, Spain: a 5-year review

The Medical Emergencies Service of Madrid (Spain) (Servicio de Urgencias Medicas de Madrid), SUMMA112, forms part of an organ donor program involving patients who have suffered out-hospital cardiac arrest and fail to respond to advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers. Subjects meeting the inclusion criteria are moved to a transplant unit under sustained resuscitation maneuvering in order to harvest the organs. This paper presents compliance with the timelines of the program, the proportion of donors, the characteristics of donors and non-donors, and the number of organs obtained.

A retrospective descriptive study was made based on the review of case histories. The SPSS(©) version 16.0 statistical package was used for data analysis.

A total of 214 cases were recorded, of which 84% were males. The mean age was 40 years. The mean time to arrival on scene was 13 min and 34 s. The mean time to arrival in hospital was 88 min and 10 s. A total of 522 organs and tissues were harvested (250 kidneys, 33 livers, 123 corneas, 97 bone tissues and 19 lungs), corresponding to 3.2 organs/tissues per patient on average. A total of 21.7% of the patients were not valid. There were no differences between the valid and non-valid patients in terms of age and gender. The causes of non-donation included extracorporeal circuit failure (6.3%), family refusal (15.6%), patient refusal expressed in life (4.7%), legal denial (1.6%), biological causes (51.6%), and others (20.3%). Cardiac compressors were used in 85 cases, yielding 92 kidneys, 41 corneas, 30 bone tissues, 19 livers and 9 lungs, corresponding to 2.1 organs/tissues per patient on average.

This program affords a very important number of organs for transplantation. Further studies are needed to assess the efficacy of mechanical cardiac compressor use in generating more organs.