Citation

Goldberg DS, Blumberg E, McCauley M, Abt P, Levine M. Am. J. Transplant. 2016; 16(10): 2836-2841.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/ajt.13971

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Death rates from drug overdoses have nearly doubled since 2003, with over 47,000 deaths in 2014. This is largely attributable to the opioid epidemic. If the unfortunate deaths of otherwise healthy people have yielded an increase in organ donors, then this might serve as perhaps the only comforting factor amongst this tragic and unnecessary loss of life. In this viewpoint, we present data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) that shows how the greatest relative increases in the mechanism of death among deceased donors from 2003-2014 was drug overdose. Unfortunately, despite the absolute increase in the number of donors dying from a drug overdose, the mean organ yield was significantly lower than other categories, in part due to concerns about disease transmission. In this paper, we present data on the changes in donation from donors with a drug overdose as a result of the opioid epidemic, and discuss the need to educate transplant candidates and their physicians about the low risk of disease transmission compared to the greater risk of dying on a transplant waitlist. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en