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Extracorporeal life support and multiorgan donation in a severe polytrauma patient: A case report
Paolo Balsorano1, Marco Ciapetti2, Giovanni Cianchi2
1Department of Health Science, Section of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain medicine, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Largo Brambilla 3, 50134 Florence, Italy.
Introduction:
Organ availability represents a key factor in transplants due to an almost universal shortage of deceased donors.
Presentation Of Case:
We present the case of a 41-year-old patients with severe polytrauma, where extracorporeal life support (ECLS) allowed brain death (BD) declaration and multiorgan retrieval and transplantation.
Discussion:
Organ procurement is of utmost importance for transplant procedures. The presented case could rise ethical doubts as ECLS could be viewed as a tool for organ preservation instead of patient support. Nonetheless, it is obvious how organ preservation represents the necessary condition for patient preservation.
Conclusion:
Besides it' role in non heart beating donors, ECLS is emerging as an adjunctive tool for brain dead donors management when standard treatment fails, potentially allowing a substantial increase in organ availability.
