Meeting the Shortage of Human Cells and Tissues: The Andalusian Quality Assurance Programme for Tissue Donation.

A quality assurance programme for the tissue donation process was launched in Andalusia in 2020 to facilitate the integration of tissue donation into end-of-life care, and to respond to the growing need for human tissue for therapeutic purposes. The results of this programme are presented here. After identifying the hospital departments in which to intensify the detection of tissue donors, expanding training activities and designing a specific data collection system for possible tissue donors who do not donate their tissues, the results of the donation activity were quantified and the causes of non-donation were analysed by applying the critical pathway for deceased tissue donation methodology.

Immunomodulation of Oxidative Stress during Organ Donation Process: Preliminary Results.

The objective was to quantify oxidative stress resulting from ischemia during the donation process, using malondialdehyde (MDA) measurement, and its modulation by the administration of melatonin. We designed a triple-blind clinical trial with donors randomized to melatonin or placebo. We collected donors by donation after brain death (DBD) and controlled donation after circulatory death (DCD), the latter maintained by normothermic regional perfusion (NRP).

Kidney transplantation with grafts from type III Maastricht non-beating-heart donors.

Kidney transplantation (KT) with kidneys from non-beating-heart donors (NBHD) is a growing trend in Spain. The majority of these kidneys come from type II Maastricht patients, although in recent years, organ donations from patients awaiting cardiac arrest following limitation of life-sustaining therapy has already been in practice in certain European and North American countries, involving type III Maastricht patients. We present a series of 6 KT using kidneys from NHBD as a consequence of limitation of life-sustaining therapy in three different hospitals in the sector of Malaga.