[An important step in cornea procurement: interview with the family of donors]

Since bioethic laws were promulgated in France in 1994, post-mortem cornea procurement can be achieved only after donor's family consent. In order to fulfil this task, we set up a group of individuals including ophthalmologists and members of the coordination team. The aim of this study was to establish the efficiency of such a group and to evaluate the content of donor's family interview.

During this 14-month prospective study, we analyzed all the interviews we performed with donor families. To report these interviews, we used a preestablished questionnaire.

We met 60 families during this study. Procurement rate was 80%. This acceptance was mostly facilitated by advanced mean donor's age (65 years) and by the 12-hour period of time allowed after donor's death. The other important factors were the terms of the interviews, the commitment for a perfect anatomical restoration. We noticed that usually (83%), the family was not aware of donor's last will and had unfortunately to make a choice. Accepting to wait for a final decision helped getting a positive response (86%) and even sometimes helped to reconsider a previous negative position (10%).

Because of a dramatic lack of corneal grafts in France, more than 7000 patients are on a waiting list. Our results show that positive response can be obtained from the donor's family when a trained group manages the donation request. We strongly suggest that each eye bank create such a group.