Rates of organ donation lag far behind the increasing need. At the start of 2006, more than 90,000 people were waiting to receive a solid organ (kidney, liver, lung, pancreas, heart, or intestine). Organ Donation examines a wide range of proposals to increase organ donation, including policies that presume consent for donation as well as the use of financial incentives such as direct payments, coverage of funeral expenses, and charitable contributions. This book urges federal agencies, nonprofit groups, and others to boost opportunities for people to record their decisions to donate, strengthen efforts to educate the public about the benefits of organ donation, and continue to improve donation systems. Organ Donation also supports initiatives to increase donations from people whose deaths are the result of irreversible cardiac failure. This book emphasizes that all members of society have a stake in an adequate supply of organs for patients in need, because each individual is a potential recipient as well as a potential donor.

One of the most interesting and at the same time most challenging fields of medicine and surgery has been that of organ donation and transplantation. It is a field that has made tremendous strides during the last few decades through the combined input and efforts of scientists from various specialties. What started as a dream of pioneers has become a reality for the thousands of our patients whose lives can now be saved and improved. However, at the same time, the challenges remain significant and so do the expectations. This book will be a collection of chapters describing these same challenges involved including the ethical, legal, and medical issues in organ donation and the technical and immunological problems the experts are facing involved in the care of these patients.The authors of this book represent a team of true global experts on the topic. In addition to the knowledge shared, the authors provide their personal clinical experience on a variety of different aspects of organ donation and transplantation.

This guide provides state-of-the-art information in order to maximise the quality and minimise the risks during donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of tissues and cells. As with all transplanted material of human origin, tissues and cells carry risks of disease transmission, which must be controlled by the application of scrupulous donor selection criteria (including testing) and comprehensive quality systems. The idea behind this guide is to help professionals on a practical level by providing generic guidance that will help improve the rate of successful clinical application of tissues and cells. The guide makes reference to EU mandatory requirements where appropriate and describes generally-accepted good practice. It has been divided into two parts. Part A contains general requirements applicable to all establishments involved in the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of tissues and cells. Part B contains specific guidelines and requirements for the different tissue and/or cell types

This timely new book, written by a transplant administrator with over sixteen years of experience, along with other expert contributors, covers the specifics of each aspect of transplant administration, providing information that will enable new administrators to quickly master essentials, help more seasoned administrators evaluate and improve their programs, and generally provide a knowledge base, focused on best-practices in light of regulatory requirements, for transplant surgeons, aspirant administrators and hospital administrators. Comprehensively covers all aspects of transplant program administration, including management, finance, staffing, quality improvement, patient intake, communication and collaboration with clinical staff, and more. Emphasizes practical application of best practices; uses bullet lists and other features to highlight essential information for each topic covered. Accompanying "Toolkit", available via the book's companion website, provides forms, a procedural manual, program assessment materials and more which buyers can use "out of the box" or adapt for use in their own program. While the book and its supplemental materials have been created specifically with the US transplant community in mind, they still have considerable value for transplant administrators and related professionals outside the US, for instance, transplantation and health policy researchers, hospital management staff who are tasked with starting a transplant program from scratch and who need ready-made materials they can adapt to suit their own regulatory environment, and others.

Organ shortage is an ongoing problem in many countries. The needless death and suffering which have resulted necessitate an investigation into potential solutions. This examination of contemporary ethical means, both practical and policy-oriented, of reducing the shortfall in organs draws on the experiences of a range of countries. The authors focus on the resolution and negotiation of ethical conflict, examine systems approaches such as the 'Spanish model' and the US Breakthrough Collaboratives, evaluate policy proposals relating to incentives, presumed consent, and modifications regarding end-of-life care, and evaluate the greatly increased use of (non-heart-beating) donors suffering circulatory death, as well as living donors. The proposed strategies and solutions are not only capable of resolving the UK's own organ-shortage crisis, but also of being implemented in other countries grappling with how to address the growing gap between supply and demand for organs.

Organ Shortage: The Solutions is the latest subject in the Continuing Education series, organized by Fondation Marcel Mérieux and Université Claude Bernard in Lyon. The annual subject is chosen to reflect the status of the topical issues of the year, as taught by leading international experts. The contribution of transplantation and clinical immunology to advanced medicine is considerable and promising. The annual volumes in this series keep the reader abreast of these developments.