Beyond the Altruistic Donor: Embedding Solidarity in Organ Procurement Policies

Controversies in organ donation: the altruistic living donor.

The question of organ procurement: beyond charity.

Over the past 15 years, the shortage of organs for transplantation has worsened. This has forced clinicians to review alternative approaches to organ procurement. These new approaches, however, may have serious implications both for patients and for society as a whole. Ever since the first cadaver organs were used for transplantation, organ procurement has relied on the altruism and goodwill of...

Potential Organ-Donor Supply and Efficiency of Organ Procurement Organizations

The authors estimated the supply of organ donors in the U.S. and also according to organ procurement organizations (OPOs). They estimated the number of donors in the U.S. to be 16,796. Estimates of the number of potential donors for each OPO were used to calculate the level of donor efficiency (actual donors as a percent of potential donors). Overall, donor efficiency for OPOs was 35 percent; t...

The economics and ethics of alternative cadaveric organ procurement policies.

Coordination of cardiac transplantation: patient processing and donor organ procurement.

As cardiac transplantation has evolved into a viable therapeutic option for some terminally ill patients with end-stage heart disease, the role of clinical transplant and donor organ procurement coordinators has evolved into a new health profession. These well-trained, highly skilled, and dedicated individual's permeate all levels of the organ transplantation process, providing continuity of ca...