Lung allocation

Turning wrong into right: the 2013 lung allocation controversy.

Insufficient supply prevents many Americans from receiving health care services they might benefit from. Sometimes, as in the case of transplantable organs, both the processes and outcomes of allocating limited resources are highly visible. In other contexts, allocation proceeds more opaquely, as when physicians discharge patients from intensive care units to open beds for other patients (1). T...

FLAS: Fuzzy lung allocation system for US-based transplantations

Rationing lung transplants--procedural fairness in allocation and appeals.

O transplantation requires explicit rationing and relies on public trust and altruism to sustain the organ supply. The well-publicized cases of two pediatric candidates for lung transplants have shaken the transplant community with emergency legal injunctions arguing that current lung-allocation policy is “arbitrary and capricious.” Although the resulting transplantation seemingly provided an u...

Risk stratification of lung transplant candidates: implications for organ allocation.

Organ Allocation In response to perceived inequities of the existing timebased system, and under mandate of the federal government, a new lung allocation system was introduced in the United States in 2005. This system allocates organs on the basis of medical urgency (risk for death without transplantation) and “net transplant benefit” (the extent to which survival is increased with, as opposed ...

Lung and heart allocation in the United States.

Lung and heart allocation in the United States has evolved over the past 20-30 years to better serve transplant candidates and improve organ utilization. The current lung allocation policy, based on the Lung Allocation Score, attempts to take into account risk of death on the waiting list and chance of survival posttransplant. This policy is flexible and can be adjusted to improve the predictiv...