Causes of Organ Donation Failure in Brazil

Abstract Introduction There has been a great improvement in transplantation medicine in Brazil in the last 2 decades. However, there remain several barriers regarding notification of brain and cardiac death as well as completion of the donation process. Methods This retrospective study was performed between January 2008 and December 2010. We reviewed all deaths in a University Hospital, observing the causes of non-notification to the State Transplantation Authority and non-donations. Results There were 41 notifications of brain death resulting in donation in only 19.5% of those cases. Cardiac death was diagnosed in 21 patients, resulting in 52.4% donations. The main cause for non-donation were family refusal (37.2%), infectious diseases (30.2%), and clinical contraindications (32.6%). Most of the missed possible donors occurred during the night (54.8%) and in the emergency room (80.9%). Conclusion There is an urgent need for better education of the Brazilian population about organ donation and brain death definitions. Other identified problems include lack of uniformity in brain death determinations among hospitals, rigid contraindications to donation in the State of Parana, physician unawareness or disbelief about brain death diagnostic criteria, and lack of structure of our Hospital.