Available Livers for Organ Donation in Decline

A study reported that the number of available livers for successful liver transplants is declining. There are two reasons for this decline:

1. The process of harvesting organs after cardiac death does not provide livers that are healthy enough for organ donation. Hospitals adopted this policy to increase the number of available organs for transplant. Under the standard process, a patient must be brain dead before his or her organs are extracted. In the meantime, the heart is kept on cardiovascular support to ensure that oxygen and blood can continue to flow to all the major organs. With extracting organs after cardiovascular death, doctors extract organs after the heart stops on its own.
2. Livers with fatty liver disease are discarded due to the damage that is caused by diseases that are the product of fatty liver disease.

See HealthDay, U.S. Liver Transplants Declining, U.S. News and World Report, May 22, 2012.