Donation after cardiac death liver transplantation: Another fly in the ointment

Improvingthe supply of organs, which could be accomplished byincreasing the donation rate (eg, presumed consent),augmenting the organ yield per donor, lowering theorgan quality threshold, or using alternate sources (eg,living donors and donors after cardiac death), wouldalso reduce demand and lead to shorter wait times andlower disease acuity at the time of transplantation, andall of this could improve patient outcomes and reducedropout.In 2003, the US Health Resources and ServicesAdministration, the Centers for Medicare andMedicaid Services, and several organ procurementorganizations formed a collaborative to formulatestrategies for addressing wait-list mortality andexpanding the number of organs available for livertransplantation. One strategy offered by the groupwas to increase the utilization of donation aftercardiac death (DCD) organs, and this consequentlyled to an expansion in the number of DCD livertransplants performed in the United States.