The potential pool of non-heart-beating kidney donors

One of the ways to fight the growing organ shortage in transplantation is by procuring organs from non-heart-beating (NHB) donors. In order to determine the NHB kidney donor pool and evaluate its significance for renal transplantation, the potential is estimated in this study by retrospective death chart review. All 200 in-hospital deaths aged 3-65 yr reported at the University Hospital Maastricht in 1994, including 25 deaths at the Emergency Department (ED), were analyzed. After exclusion of deaths by computerized ICD-9-CM codes, 109 charts were abstracted and reviewed by experts. As a result a potential of eight brain dead, heart-beating (HB) donors and 56 NHB donors were identified. Medical suitability and logistic availability were scored in an attempt to quantify the likelihood of the donation to proceed towards successful organ procurement. These scores resulted in a range of potential NHB donors from 4.5 to 9.2 per 100 in-hospital deaths. Including rates of refusal to consent, as well as rates of technical failures, 24.0-49.6 kidneys were calculated to be realistically available annually, 2-4.5 times the projected number of kidneys from HB donors. With this increase of available grafts, at least growth of the renal waiting list would be prevented. This estimate shows that the potential of NHB kidney donors is large, and its impact on organ shortage would be considerable. Since 68% of potential NHB kidney donors, and also 70% of the medically most suitable donors, were found in ED, ICU, and CCU, focusing on these hospital units for implementation of routine procurement of kidneys from NHB donors is probably most effective. We therefore plead for the introduction of NHB kidney procurement protocols in EDs, ICUs, and CCUs.