• Matthew J Weiss, Wendy Sherry, and Laura Hornby.
• Division of Pediatric Intensive Care, CHU de Québec, Centre Mère-Enfant Soleil, Québec, Québec, Canada; Medical Director of Donation, Transplant Québec, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Department of Pediatrics, Université Laval, Faculté de Médecine, Québec, Québec, Canada; Deceased Donation, Canadian Blood Services, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: matthew-john.weiss@mail.chudequebec.ca.
• Paediatr Respir Rev. 2019 Feb 1; 29: 3-8.

AbstractPediatric donation after circulatory death (pDCD) is an established pathway for organ donation. It remains, however, a relatively rare event worldwide, and most clinicians outside of the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) are unfamiliar with it. The goal of this review is to introduce the processes and concepts of pDCD. While most children die in circumstances that would not allow pDCD, many children that die after withdrawal of life sustaining therapy (WLST) may be eligible for donation of some organs. The potential benefits of this practice to patients on the wait list are well known, but donation can also be an opportunity to honor a patient's or family's desire to altruistically improve the lives of others. Offering the possibility of donation requires careful attention to ethical principles to ensure that conflicts of interest are avoided and that the family is free to make an independent, fully informed decision. Doing so allows families and decision makers the autonomy to decide if donation is something they wish to incorporate into end-of-life care.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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