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Doctors try a controversial technique to reduce the transplant organ shortage
Last edited Mon Jul 8, 2024, 04:31 PM - Edit history (1)
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/07/08/nx-s1-4896568/transplant-organ-shortage-nrp-normothermic-regional-perfusion("Audio will be available later today",
more links at source)
Doctors try a controversial technique to reduce the transplant organ shortage
JULY 8, 2024 5:44 AM ET
HEARD ON MORNING EDITION
Rob Stein
[...]
"We’re doing an NRP recovery," says Sellers, referring to normothermic regional perfusion, a new kind of organ retrieval procedure Sellers calls "revolutionary."
[...]
NRP is generating excitement as an important innovation that produces more, high-quality livers, kidneys, and hearts that could help alleviate the chronic shortage of organs. More than 100,000 people are on waiting lists for organs, most for kidneys, and 17 are estimated to die every day because the number of available organs hasn’t been able to keep pace with the demand.
About half of the nation’s 56 organ procurement organizations have already started using NRP and more are planning to start soon, according to the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations.
But NRP has sparked an intense ethical debate. The American Journal of Bioethics dedicated a recent issue to the controversy over whether the technique blurs the definition of death. "I think the procedure raises very major ethical and legal issues," says Alexander Capron, a bioethicist and lawyer at the University of Southern California. "I find it disturbing."
[...]
JULY 8, 2024 5:44 AM ET
HEARD ON MORNING EDITION
Rob Stein
[...]
"We’re doing an NRP recovery," says Sellers, referring to normothermic regional perfusion, a new kind of organ retrieval procedure Sellers calls "revolutionary."
[...]
NRP is generating excitement as an important innovation that produces more, high-quality livers, kidneys, and hearts that could help alleviate the chronic shortage of organs. More than 100,000 people are on waiting lists for organs, most for kidneys, and 17 are estimated to die every day because the number of available organs hasn’t been able to keep pace with the demand.
About half of the nation’s 56 organ procurement organizations have already started using NRP and more are planning to start soon, according to the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations.
But NRP has sparked an intense ethical debate. The American Journal of Bioethics dedicated a recent issue to the controversy over whether the technique blurs the definition of death. "I think the procedure raises very major ethical and legal issues," says Alexander Capron, a bioethicist and lawyer at the University of Southern California. "I find it disturbing."
[...]