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Transplantation Service (transplantation + service)

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Medical Sciences	100%

Selected Abstracts

The Roles of a Bioethicist on an Organ Transplantation Service

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 4 2005
Linda Wright
Organ transplantation centers have expanded and increased in the last 20 years as transplant recipient outcomes have improved steadily and transplantation has moved from experimentation to treatment of choice for several indications. Transplantation presents difficult ethical and legal challenges for the transplant community and society. These include declarations of death, consent to donation and allocation of a scarce societal resource, i.e. transplantable organs. Policy and practice reflect the law, societal beliefs and prevailing values. A bioethicist contributes to a transplant team by clarifying values held by various stakeholders or embodied in decisions and policies, conducting clinical consultations, developing and interpreting policy and researching the ethics of innovations for rationing and increasing available supply of organs for transplantation. The bioethicist's interdisciplinary education, preparation, experience and familiarity with ethics, law, sociology and philosophy and skills of mediation, communication and ethical analysis contribute to addressing and resolving many issues in transplantation. This paper outlines the various roles of a bioethicist on a transplantation service, using case examples to illustrate some of the ethical issues. [source]

Pediatric renal transplantation in a South African teaching hospital: A 20-year perspective

PEDIATRIC TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 4 2006
G. J. Pitcher
Abstract:, Introduction:, Renal transplantation is established as the standard of care for end-stage renal failure (ESRF) in the developed world. In emerging nations, the appropriateness of such costly interventions has been questioned. We undertook an analysis of all renal transplants undertaken under the care of the pediatric nephrology service at the Johannesburg Hospital, South Africa, in order to establish the outcomes of a transplantation service in a resource-constrained environment in a developing country. Methods:, This was a retrospective review of renal transplantation undertaken at a single teaching hospital in Johannesburg, part of the University of the Witwatersrand. Two hundred and eighty-two transplants were performed between 1984 and 2003. Demographic characteristics of the transplanted population, diagnosis, morbidity, graft survival, and mortality were recorded. Results:, Overall 1-, 5-, and 10-yr graft survival was 82, 44, and 23%. Overall 1-, 5-, and 10-yr patient survival was 97, 84, and 68%. The median graft survival for all transplantation episodes was 4.38 yr; 70% of patients survive 10 yr and 54% survive 20 yr or more. Although early graft survival was good, there was a more rapid rate of graft loss than when compared to results from developed centers with much poorer results at 5 and 10 yr. Causes of ESRF show marked variation between the races, and black patients have significantly worse outcomes than others. Compared with white patients, black recipients received fewer living donor kidneys (26 vs. 10%, p = 0.0019), a greater proportion of totally mismatched organs (56 vs. 36%, p = 0.015), less pre-emptive transplantation (7 vs. 35%, p = 0.0001) and experienced a higher rate of primary non-function (13 vs. 3%, p = 0.004). Surgical complications of transplantation occurred in 9% of recipients, but rarely led to graft loss. Conclusion:, Pediatric renal transplantation in Johannesburg can be accomplished with low complication rates, but medium and long-term graft survival is poor when compared with contemporary results achieved in developed countries. The difficulties of undertaking such complex, multidisciplinary interventions in a developing nation are daunting, but we believe that renal transplantation should still be the treatment of choice for all children with ESRF. The poorer outcomes in black recipients can be addressed by increasing education in our communities and expanding the pool of appropriate donors. Better institutional support would allow for improved long-term patient care. [source]

Process of Care Events in Transplantation: Effects on the Cost of Hospitalization

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 10 2010
N. N. Egorova
Deviations in the processes of healthcare delivery that affect patient outcomes are recognized to have an impact on the cost of hospitalization. Whether deviations that do not affect patient outcome affects cost has not been studied. We have analyzed process of care (POC) events that were reported in a large transplantation service (n = 3,012) in 2005, delineating whether or not there was a health consequence of the event and assessing the impact on hospital resource utilization. Propensity score matching was used to adjust for patient differences. The rate of POC events varied by transplanted organ: from 10.8 per 1000 patient days (kidney) to 17.3 (liver). The probability of a POC event increased with severity of illness. The majority (81.5%) of the POC events had no apparent effect on patients' health (63.6% no effect and 17.9% unknown). POC events were associated with longer length of stay (LOS) and higher costs independent of whether there was a patient health impact. Multiple events during the same hospitalization were associated with the highest impact on LOS and cost. POC events in transplantation occur frequently, more often in sicker patients and, although the majority of POC events do not harm the patient, their effect on resource utilization is significant. [source]