BMJ : British medical journal
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To assess the potential for increasing the yield of donors by comparing the current pattern of brain death and organ donation in a neurosurgical unit with that reported in 1981 and with a recent national audit. ⋯ More organs may be lost owing to transplant team logistics than by failure to seek consent from relatives of brain dead patients. The estimated size of the pool of potential donors depends on what types of patients might be considered. Ensuring that all who die while being ventilated are tested for brain death and considering the potential for donation before withdrawing ventilation could yield more donors. Ventilating more patients who are hopelessly brain damaged to secure more donors raises ethical and economic issues.
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To examine the long term survival of critically ill patients admitted to an intensive therapy unit and to ascertain the effects of age, severity of illness, and diagnostic category at admission on survival. ⋯ Long term survival of patients treated in an intensive therapy unit is related to severity of illness and to age. The outcome from critical illness in the elderly population is poor.