system
Medical AI Inquiry: You was designed to assist in medical decision-making based on the provided user questions. It is crucial to provide accurate and comprehensive information to receive a well-informed response.  Labels: BACKGROUND, OBJECTIVE, METHODS, RESULTS. Meshes: Death, Heart Transplantation, Humans, Lung Transplantation, Retrospective Studies, Tissue Donors, Tissue and Organ Procurement, United States.
user
Does donation after cardiac death have a minimal impact on thoracic organ recovery? Context: Our organ procurement organization recently developed an aggressive donation after cardiac death program. Thoracic organs are rarely recovered from non-heart-beating donors. Therefore, there is concern that donation after cardiac death may affect the recovery of thoracic organs from donors not allowed to progress to brain death. To evaluate the potential impact of donation after cardiac death on the recovery of thoracic organs. On the assumption that prolongation of care on all cases would result in a diagnosis of brain death. By retrospective chart review, all donations after cardiac death were evaluated for thoracic organ potential using the same standards that were used to evaluate brain-dead donors. During the study period there were 34 of 44 (77%) non-heart-beating donors qualified to donate abdominal organs only. Ten of 44 non-heart-beating donors (24%) qualified to potentially donate thoracic organs; the families of 4 of 10 of these donors insisted on the immediate withdrawal of life support, leaving only 6 donors with thoracic organ potential. All 6 of these donors qualified as potential heart donors and 3 as potential lung donors.
assistant
A total of 97 organs were recovered and successfully transplanted from 44 non-heart-beating donors. If all the donors who qualified to donate thoracic organs progressed to brain death and if their thoracic organs were transplantable, then 6 additional hearts and 3 pairs of lungs may have been recovered. These data demonstrate that an aggressive donation after cardiac death program contributes significantly to the organ donor pool, with a minimal impact on potential thoracic organ recovery. Final Decision: yes