Opportunities for Organ Donor Intervention Research: Saving Lives by Improving the Quality and Quantity of Organs for Transplantation
The organ donation and transplantation system strives to honor the gift of donated organs by fully using those organs to save and improve the quality of the lives of their recipients. Organ transplantation has become the optimal treatment for many end-stage organ-specific diseases. However, there are not enough donated organs to meet the demand. Some donated organs may not be recovered, some recovered organs may not be transplanted, and some transplanted organs may not function adequately. Yet, almost all transplantation research to date has focused on transplant recipients and on ways to improve transplantation processes and post-transplant health outcomes rather than on how to enhance the quality and increase the quantity of organs that can be recovered from deceased donors and then successfully transplanted. Organ donor intervention research can test and assess interventions (e.g., medications, devices, and donor management protocols) to maintain or improve organ quality prior to, during, and following transplantation. The intervention is administered either while the organ is still in the deceased donor or after it is recovered from the donor but before it is transplanted into a recipient. Organ donor intervention research presents new challenges to the organ donation and transplantation community because of ethical questions about who should be considered a human subject in a research study, whose permission and oversight are needed, and how to ensure that such research does not threaten the equitable distribution of a scarce and valuable resource. Therefore, organ donor intervention research requires extensive oversight and careful planning to ensure that the integrity of the donation and transplantation process is maintained and that fully using the gift of the donated organ has the highest priority in all phases of research.
