Organ Procurement in the Brain Dead Donors Without In Vivo Cold Perfusion: A Novel Technique

We describe our technique of ex vivo organ perfusion and procurement in donation after deceased brain death (DBD) donors.

This technique comprises warm dissection of liver, kidneys, and heart, in hemodynamically stable DBD donors and perfusing them ex vivo. The cardiac and abdominal dissection can take place simultaneously. As a precaution, the iliac arteries and the abdominal aorta are dissected and kept ready for rapid cannulation and perfusion, should the donor become unstable at any stage.The liver dissection is in principle similar to living donor hepatectomy, where portal dissection is combined with supra and infrahepatic caval dissection to completely mobilize liver to allow it to be removed and perfused ex vivo. The renal dissection is done after hepatic dissection is complete. The sequence of recovery of organ was modified where kidneys were procured first followed by hepatic and cardiac procurement simultaneously.

Twelve multivisceral (liver and kidneys in all and heart in four) procurements have been performed. The average perfusion fluid volume for liver was 3.4 L. All recipients had uneventful postoperative course.

Our technique has not affected recipient outcomes and with benefits of less use of preservation solution, shortening bench surgery time, and decreasing the propensity of procurement injuries by avoiding cold-phase dissection.