Transplant de Organe

[The Unknown 15045]

A New Way of Harvesting Organs Divides Doctors and Ethicists

The new technique, transplant surgeons say, significantly expands the potential pool to patients who are comatose but not brain dead, and whose families have withdrawn life support because there is little chance of recovery. After these patients’ hearts stop, they are declared dead. But hearts are almost never recovered from these donors because they are often damaged by oxygen depletion during the dying process.

Surgeons have discovered that returning blood flow to the heart, after the donor has been declared dead, will restore it to a remarkable degree, making it suitable for transplant.

But two aspects of the procedure have left some surgeons and bioethicists uncomfortable.

The first problem, some ethicists and surgeons say, stems from the way death has traditionally been defined: The heart has stopped and circulation of blood has irreversibly ceased. Because the new procedure involves restarting blood flow, critics say it essentially invalidates the earlier declaration of death.

But that may be a minor problem compared to an additional step surgeons take: They use metal clamps to cut blood flow from the revived heart to the donor’s head, to limit blood flow to the brain to prevent the possibility that any brain activity is restored. Some physicians and ethicists say that is a tacit admission that the donor might not be legally dead.

“It’s kind of a creepy thing to be doing,” a longtime heart surgeon and transplant specialist, Dr. V. Eric Thompson, said at a recent panel discussion about the procedure at the Yale School of Medicine.

*Vor sa recolteze organe inca din pacienti in viata care nu pot sa se exprime!!!  Primitorii sint soldati si alti oficialitati.*

https://www.yahoo.com/news/way-harvesting-organs-divides-doctors-134732595.html