Most needy do not always get donor livers in the USA

Main Category: Transplants / Organ Donations
Article Date: 20 Apr 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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A new study has revealed the most needy do not always get donor (donated) livers in the USA. This, says the report, is because of population disparities.

The report was carried out at Colorado University Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado, USA. It said that the procurement groups that facilitate liver transplants do not have a defined standard size. Population pools can vary in size from 1.2 million people to 8 million.

In 1998 regulations came into force which were supposed to deal with this, they were supposed to make the system fairer by ensuring that organs were allocated according to patients' needs. The regulations had intended population pools to be standardized with about 9 million people in each pool. Unfortunately, this has not happened, says the study. The study says that smaller organizations objected to this idea. Consequently, there is no national plan today.

You can read the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The report looked at information related to people who received liver transplants between February 2002 and March 2003. It examined the total number of transplants and how patients ranked nationally - using a scoring system that was implemented in February 2002. The aim of the scoring system was to make the system fairer.

It found that people in small procurement groups who had high needs got fewer transplants than people in large procurement groups with the same score (people in large procurement groups were better off).

The report said that the reason for this is that in large procurement groups the donor-liver stays locally for local transplantation (as it knows local demand will soon ask for that liver).

Whether a high need person is being denied an organ because it went to a person with slightly lower need is a matter of perspective, said James Trotter, Chief Author of the study. He said there is a need for people to sit down and discuss increasing organ procurement areas. "This is what was suggested," he said. "By doing that it would allow more uniform transplants according to severe illness. There could be some problems. Some smaller programs might close."

The website of the Journal of the American Medical Association is:
http://jama.ama-assn.org

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