The number of organs removed from a donor who has succumbed to an overdose is constantly increasing across the Atlantic, in particular for heart surgeries.
In the United States, the opioid crisis is enabling a significant increase in heart transplants in the country. Researchers conducted a study on the characteristics of donors and the safety of these transplants. The results were published in the specialist journal The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
More and more donors who died of an overdose
In 2017, of all heart transplants performed in 11 US states, more than 20% of donors died of an overdose. By comparison, in 2000, in most US states, less than 1% of donors died of an overdose. The highest rate was 5.6% and involved just one state.
Overdose has become the fourth leading cause of donor death in this type of transplant: it increased 14 times between 2000 and 2017.
Donors in good health
The researchers analyzed the profile of donors who died of an overdose. They note that their average age is less than 40 years, and that diabetes or hypertension are infrequent among them compared to the average donor. According to them, overdose victims have hearts healthy enough to become donors.
“In the absence of significant differences between the survival rates of recipients of an organ removed from a person who died of an overdose and the others, specifies Dr. Moazami, author of this study, increasing this type of donation seems appropriate, this will potentially increase the number of hearts available for transplantation.”
The risk of hepatitis C
The main concern of the scientific community with regard to these organs is the risk of hepatitis C. Injecting drug use considerably increases the risk of contracting it. According to Dr. Moazami, the medical tools to test for the disease have improved considerably and so have the treatments. Today, it is possible to cure the disease.
According to United Network for Organ Sharing, the American organization in charge of administering transplants, more than 36,500 transplants were performed in the country in 2018. This figure had never been reached so far.
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