Prog Transplant
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Most organ procurement organization professionals and transplant surgeons intuitively know that meeting donor management goals improves organ allocation and transplant outcomes. In this era of evidence-based medicine, it is important to know whether the data support this assumption. ⋯ Results were broken down by donor type: standard-criteria donation, expanded-criteria donation, and donation after cardiac death. For all 6 organ procurement organizations combined, the data for all of 2008 show a substantial and statistically significant improvement in number of organs transplanted per donor for standard criteria donation and total donors when goals are met, with a smaller degree of improvement (although not statistically significant) in the number of organs transplanted per donor for expanded-criteria donation and donation after cardiac death when goals are met.
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Demographic factors and factors from donors' medical and social history influence the number of organs transplanted per donor. The goal for organ procurement organizations is 4.30 organs transplanted per standard criteria donor. ⋯ Demographic factors and other factors in donors' medical and social histories significantly reduced the number of organs transplanted per donor. An algorithm that uses all potential demographic factors and factors related to medical and social history nested within each other could be developed to predict number of organs transplanted.
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Editorial Biography Historical Article
Courage and character, leaders and legends: an interview with Maria Siemionow, MD, PhD, DSc.