Intensive care to facilitate organ donation. ONT-SEMICYUC recommendations.

Intensive care to facilitate organ donation (ICOD) is defined as the initiation or continuation of life-sustaining measures, such as mechanical ventilation, in patients with a devastating brain injury with high probability of evolving to brain death and in whom curative treatment has been completely dismissed and considered futile. ICOD incorporates the option to organ donation allowing a holistic approach to end-of-life care, consistent with the patients wills and values. Should the patient not evolve to brain death, life-supportive treatment must be withdrawal and controlled asystolia donation could be evaluated.

Results After Implementing a Program of Intensive Care to Facilitate Organ Donation.

Unlabelled: A program of intensive care to facilitate organ donation (ICOD) represents one of the ways to increase donation rate following brain death (BD).

Objectives: To analyze the impact and cost-effectiveness of setting up an ICOD strategy.

Method: Retrospective cases of BD donors from the Spanish region La Rioja were included, after implementation of an ICOD program (2011-2016).

Summary of Spanish recommendations on intensive care to facilitate organ donation.

With the aim of consolidating recommendations about the practice of initiating or continuing intensive care to facilitate organ donation (ICOD), an ad hoc working group was established, comprising 10 intensivists designated by the Spanish Society of Intensive Care and Coronary Units (SEMICYUC) and the Spanish National Transplant Organization (ONT). Consensus was reached in all recommendations through a deliberative process. After a public consultation, the final recommendations were institutionally adopted by SEMICYUC, ONT, and the Transplant Committee of the National Health-Care System.

Intensive Care to Facilitate Organ Donation: A Report on the Experience of 2 Spanish Centers With a Common Protocol.

Background: The aim of this study is to report the experience with a program of Intensive Care to facilitate Organ Donation (ICOD) in 2 Spanish centers based on a common protocol.

Methods: Retrospective review of clinical charts of patients with a devastating brain injury whose families were approached to discuss the possibility of ICOD once further treatment was deemed futile by the treating team. Study period is from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2015.

[Emergency department staff and the organ donation process: recommendations from the joint working group of the National Transplant Organization and the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (ONT-SEMES)].

Although 4769 transplants were performed in Spain in 2015 and the organ donor rate reached 39.7 per million population, thousands of patients remain on wait lists. Currently 65% of donors die from strokes and the mean donor age is 64 years.