A team from La Arrixaca prepares to carry out a transplant. /
The hospital has carried out eleven interventions of this type, 21% of all those that have been carried out in the country
La Arrixaca continues to lead Spain in heart transplantation with organs from asystole donation. If the first two interventions of this type were carried out in the hospital in 2021, another seven were carried out last year. In total, 11 transplants that represent 21% of all those registered in Spain through this route, as highlighted on Thursday by the director general of the National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Domínguez-Gil.
The donation in asystole has been a shock to the regional heart transplant program, which broke records in 2022, with 16 interventions in total. This new way to obtain organs was born as an alternative to the decrease in patients who died due to brain death. These new donors are people who are in the ICU for different reasons and enter an irreversible phase, so that death becomes inevitable. When that happens, and if the families agree to the donation, life support is withdrawn, so that when cardiorespiratory arrest occurs, the surgeons proceed to extract the different organs.
Asystole donation programs began in Spain in 2009, and La Arrixaca joined in 2014. Until 2020, the heart was ruled out in these donations, given how sensitive this organ is, but now not only have heart transplants also been performed through this route, but that La Arrixaca has been at the head of Spain. This new route “has made it possible to lower the waiting list a lot”, so that when a patient needs a heart, it does not take long for them to be called to the operating room, stressed, on his part, Sergio Cánovas, head of Cardiovascular Surgery at La Arrixaca . In addition, “the results are very good,” with low mortality rates.
The role of equipment for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation of blood (ECMO) is key to the success of asystolic donation, highlighted Ricardo Robles, regional transplant coordinator. After death, the donor is connected to one of these teams, which allows the different organs to be maintained, including the heart. Health has launched portable ECMO equipment for the extraction of donated organs in asystole in hospitals throughout the Region.
donation rate
While waiting for the Ministry of Health to offer the data on donation and transplantation in the rest of the organs, it is known since the donor rate stood at 48.4 per million inhabitants in the Region of Murcia in 2022. This figure represents a slight decrease compared to last year, parallel to the increase in family refusals, which reached 13% (compared to 9% in 2021). However, the Region continues to be above the national average (46.3 donors per million), although below the goal of 50 donors per million set by the ONT. Seven communities manage to exceed that figure, with Cantabria (82.8) in the lead. Spain is once again the leader in donation, with rates well above those registered in the rest of Europe.
In all of Spain, a total of 5,383 transplants were performed in 2022, representing an increase of 13% compared to 2021 (4,781). In this way, figures similar to those before the pandemic are recovered (5,445 in 2019 and 5,321 in 2018).
«After some difficult years for the entire National Health System (SNS), today we want to talk about overcoming, shared success between health workers, Spanish society and all health authorities. We would not have this data without all of them. Our transplant system is robust, after adapting to the epidemiological situation of Covid. It has managed to recover the path of growth that it had been maintaining until March 2020,” the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, celebrated this Thursday in statements collected by Europa Press.
The increase in the number of transplants has been widespread in all types of organ donations in Spain. Specifically, 3,402 kidney transplants were performed, 15 percent more than in 2021; 1,159 liver, an 8 percent increase; 415 lung, 15 percent more; 311 cardiac, 3 percent more; 92 from pancreas, 12 percent more; and four intestinal transplants.
The general director of the ONT, Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, highlighted the implementation of new strategies, such as the donation of organs from patients with a positive PCR for Covid. It was the Region of Murcia that opened this path. La Arrixaca welcomed the first of these donations in Spain in 2020, which made it possible to carry out a heart transplant. This milestone led to a change in the national protocols, and the performance of transplants with organs from patients who, although they have a positive PCR, no longer show clinical symptoms and die from causes other than Covid, were authorized.
#Arrixaca #continues #lead #Spain #heart #transplantation #donated #organs #asystole