Non-Heart-Beating Donor Program: Results After 3 Years of Experience.

Background: Non-heart-beating donation (NHBD) is a useful way to obtain organs and tissues. Therefore, since 2012 we have had an NHBD protocol in the metropolitan area of Seville. The aim of this work was to present the results obtained after 3 years of program.

Methods: Prospective observational study carried out from 2012 to 2014. We included all patients with an extrahospitalary sudden death who did not survive despite cardiopulmonary resuscitation, becoming a potential donors (PD). Variables included number of consultations, PD, allowed donor (AD), real donor (RD), and family or legal refusals; minutes of out-hospital care, in-hospital care, cannulation, and perfusion of the RD; and number of organs and tissues removed and viable proportion. Nonallowed donors were grouped according to the discarding cause.

Results: We received 97 consultations, of which 40 were performed as PD. Of these, 24 were AD (60%) and 22 RD (55%). There were only 2 family refusals. In 2012, 10 patients were donors, 5 in 2013, and 7 in 2014. The out-hospital median time was 71 (interquartile range [IQR] 60-76) minutes, in-hospital 29 (26-34) minutes, cannulation 28 (24-33) minutes, and perfusion 135 (105-177) minutes. Eighteen tissues and 43 organs were extracted, of which 32 were implanted (75%), with kidneys (96%) being more frequent. Nonallowed donors numbered 12 in 2012, 4 in 2013, and 1 in 2014, and out-hospital causes were the most frequent discard reason.

Conclusions: NHBD is a useful program in our city with a low refusal rate (8%), an average of 1.45 organs per donor, and kidney the most frequent organ.