RESUMO
Regardless of the level of development, religion and beliefs have crucial impact on people's attitude towards organ donation. Although organ donation in Islam is obviously appraised, mainly due to lack of an appropriate infrastructure, post-mortem donation rate in Islamic countries is not comparable to successful settings. We conducted this study to assess the extent of contribution of factors that reduce the level of effectiveness, and also to determine the impact of altruistic feelings in the month of Ramadan on family refusal as the leading modifiable contributor to organ donation rate. All records of potential and actual brain-dead donors, referred to Organ Procurement Unit of the Iranian Tissue Bank, from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2014, were analyzed. In each year, the number of potential and actual donors in the month of Ramadan was compared to the mean value in the remaining 11 months. Of 1758 total potential donors in 10 years, 464 cases became actual donors (26.4% as overall level of effectiveness). The reasons for non-effectiveness were medical contraindications (25.4%), cardiac arrest before referral or during maintenance (7.4%), family refusal (30.8%), judicial refusal (8.7%), etc (1.3%). Analysis showed no significant differences between donation rates (both potential and actual) in Ramadan and non-Ramadan months for potential (Δ=3.55, 95% CI: -6.7 to 13.8) and actual donors (Δ=1.35, 95% CI: -2.3 to 5). Despite the undeniable role of religion and beliefs in the establishment of organ procurement program from brain-dead donors, there was no monthly variability in post-mortem organ donation rate.
RESUMO
The Act of transplantation from deceased and dead-brain donors was ratified in the parliament in 2000. In the subsequent two years, few number of organs were procured from dead-brain patients and transplanted. Later on, a national network was established for organ procurement; units for recognizing brain death were established in Tehran and some other cities to provide the necessary infrastructure for organ transplantation from deceased and dead-brain donors. In this report, we described the outcome of organ procurement from deceased and dead-brain donors after 10 years of its establishment in Iran. To do so, we collected data from some relevant published articles and also reports of the Ministry of Health released between 2001 and 2010. By the year 2010, 3673 organs were harvested from deceased donors and transplanted. The rate of liver transplantation has increased rapidly from 16 cases in 2001 to 280 cases in 2010-almost 18 times. There were 554 cadaveric kidney transplantation in 2010; it comprised 19% of total kidney transplantations that is almost 8 times that in 2001. Over the study period, organ procurement has increased by 6-fold. The rate of organ procurement from deceased and dead-brain donors has increased dramatically over the studied period. Considering the existing potentials for this scheme of organ procurement, it seems that improving the Iranian Network for Transplant Organ Procurement will lead to better results.
RESUMO
National registries provide valuable bases for comparisons and aid innovative policies. Iran, with 70 million inhabitants, has a governmentally supported system of organ and tissue procurement and transplantation. By two acts of legislation, first in 1997 regarding governmental rewarding living kidney donation and second in 2000 regarding cadaveric transplantation, this field has had remarkable growth in the last decade, under the supervision of the Ministry of Health. Since the beginning of each organ or tissue transplantation activity up to 2006, 21,359 kidneys, 338 livers, 122 hearts, 20 lungs, 7 pancreas, 1898 bone marrows, 28,838 corneas, 1380 heart valves, and 1366 bones were transplanted in our country. Increases in the number of live kidney transplantations are taking place, but cannot keep pace with the increasing number of patients. It is highly recommended that we try to increase cadaveric transplantation in coming years.