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.