Organ Transplant Waiting Lists Can Be Artificially Inflated, Comment Organ Transplant Experts

Main Category: Transplants / Organ Donations
Article Date: 13 Jul 2011 - 16:00 PDT

Organ Transplant Waiting Lists Can Be Artificially Inflated, Comment Organ Transplant Experts

Waiting lists for organ transplants were the topic of discussion for organ transplant experts and their views were published online first as a Viewpoint by The Lancet. They believe that such lists can be artificially inflated as not all patients requiring a transplant actually opt to receive one (and it varies depending on the organ).

The Viewpoint is by Professor Rinaldo Bellomo, University of Melbourne, and Department of Intensive Care, Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, and Dr Nereo Zamperetti, Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, San Bortolo Hospital, Vicenza, Italy, and colleagues. Patients are marked either active or inactive on the transplantation list based on their interest in receiving the transplant.

The authors state:
"Crucially, not all the patients on waiting lists areactually eligible for transplantation."They refer to an old article that was published in the Washington Post in 2008 which stated that inactive patients were a major chunk out of an approximate 100,000 patients in the USA waiting for various transplants. Although it is expected that some patients can become temporarily inactive due to infections, moving locations, and other reasons, the Washington Post article went on to say that:

"..more than 55 percent of the patients on the list for hearts, and nearly 49 percent waiting for livers, had been inactive for more than two years. Nearly half of those waiting for kidneys had been inactive for at least a year - and nearly a third for more than two years..In some cases, evaluations of patients' suitability for a transplant were never completed..[as in] more than 36 percent of kidney transplant candidates".

Continue Reading............


"Reflections on transplantation waiting lists"Nereo Zamperetti MD, Prof Rinaldo Bellomo MD, Pasquale Piccinni MD, Claudio Ronco MDThe Lancet, Early Online Publication, 12 July 2011 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)62343-4

Written by Anne Hudsmith Copyright: Medical News Today