New Source For Kidney Transplants: People Who Die From Heart Attack Outside A Hospital

Main Category: Transplants / Organ Donations
Article Date: 02 Aug 2006 - 11:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

In the United States, kidneys for transplant operations come from people who are declared brain-dead in the hospital ("heart-beating donors") or from living donors. But in Spain, eligible kidney donors include "non-heart-beating donors," who are people who die of cardiac arrest in the community after unsuccessful CPR if a series of other stringent criteria are met.

In a new study, Spanish researchers compared outcomes of 584 recipients of kidneys from heart-beating donors and 320 recipients of kidneys from non-heart-beating donors (Article, p.148).

One-year and five-year graft survival rates were similar for transplantations from heart-beating donors under 60 and from non-heart-beating donors (about 90 percent and 85 percent, respectively).

###

Tip sheet Annals of Internal Medicine, August, 2006

Contact: Susan Anderson
American College of Physicians

• Additional
• References
• Citations