[TRNSPLNT] Potential Donors
Don - SBC
I've been following this number thing as I'm sure some of you have.
Particularly depressing is the 42% overall consent rate--which I understand
as the percentage of potential donors (10 - 14K) that become actual donors.
How does this translate to organs transplanted? If there are 4,615 cadaveric
donors, each of whom contributed an average of 3 organs to the input stream
(sorry for the computer-eze, guys, have to call it something), this could
mean 13,845 lives saved if every transplanted organ saved someone's life. I
doubt the average is 3. In the isolated case of my own kidney donor, the
number was precisely 3 lives saved (would have been 4 but the second kidney
conked out, the recipient was retransplanted and still living).
Do we have a better number than "3" ? Is this even a good way to approach
this? For the purposes of donor awareness talks and such I tend to use this
simply because I don't have a better number. The probable reason I don't
have a better number is that I've never seen one. Have you?
If so, what might it be?
Incidentally, or maybe importantly, if there were just 4,490 deaths on the
list in 2002 this translates to 12.3 per day, not 16 or 17 as I've heard
bantered about (and I've done some of the bantering).
Don Killen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Rahn" <stev...@techie.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2003 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: Potential Donors
> P.J.,
> Thanks for your input. I have managed to find some more recent data,
> from the report of Suzanne Lane Conrad, Director of the Iowa Donor
> Network, on a 35-OPO study of inpatient medical record reviews. The
> study, which was presented at the May 2002 meeting of the HHS Advisory
> Committee On Transplantation, and published in the summer 2002 edition
> of Association of Organ Procurement Organizations newsletter, looked at
> hospital records from 1997 to 1999. It concluded that the pool of
> potential donors was between 10,000 and 14,000 annually, rather lower
> than the number most often used in donor awareness programs and
> literature, with an overall consent rate of 42%. Most distressing was
> the conclusion that despite HHS regulations requiring referral of
> potential donors as a condition of participation in Medicare, fully 15%
> of the potential donors are never referred to an OPO. The latest
> statistics from UNOS, meanwhile, indicate 4,615 deceased donors and
> 4,490 deaths on the waiting list during 2002. Depending on your level of
> optimism regarding where in the 10K to 14K range the real number of
> potential donors falls, that's an overall consent rate of 45% to 33%.
> The waiting list now has over 80,000 people on it.
>
> Steven W. Rahn
> L Tx 9/6 and 9/8 '85, Waiting for Re-Tx
> "Face the Worst, Expect the Best,
> Do the Most, Forget the Rest"
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Organ transplant recipients and anyone else intested in the
> issues. [mailto:TRNS...@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU] On Behalf Of P.J. Geraghty
> Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 5:15 PM
> To: TRNS...@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU
> Subject: Re: [TRNSPLNT] Potential Donors
>
> In article <008101c2b7fc$c0774a00$0100a8c0@geek3>,
> stev...@techie.com (Steve Rahn) wrote:
>
> > Anybody have a data source (not an estimate, but a statistical
> reference
> > that I can cite) that shows how many people died last year in
> > circumstances that would allow organ donation? I've looked at all the
> > usual suspects, UNOS, USTransplant. SRTR, etc., and none of them seem
> to
> > have this data.
> > Thanks,
> > Steve
> >
> > Steve Rahn
> > L Tx 9/6 & 9/8 '85, Waiting for Re-Tx
> > The Senility Prayer
> > God grant me the senility to forget
> > the people I never liked anyway,
> > the good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
> > and the eyesight to tell the difference"
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast numbers, or even estimates.
> "Scientific" guesses have placed the number at somewhere between
> 12.5K-27K annually, based on death record reviews and analysis of ICD9
> diagnosis codes.* By contrast, there were 6,082 deceased (cadaveric)
> donors in 2001**, indicated a conversion rate of less than 50% (and
> possibly less than 25%).
>
> See the sources below for more information.
>
> Sources:
> *Broznick BA: Organ procurement : Fulfilling a need. Transplant Proc
> 20(suppl 1):1010, 1988
> *Evans RW: The actual and potential supply of organ donors in the
> United States. Clin Transplant 329-341, 1990
> *Stuart FP: Need, supply and legal issues related to organ
> transplantation in the United States. Transplant Proc 16:87-94, 1984
> **OPTN website (http://www.optn.org)
>
> --
> P.J. Geraghty
> Transplant coordinator, paramedic, firefighter, husband and father
> p...@geraghtys.net
> http://www.geraghtys.net
>
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