Perioperative hemodynamic heterogeneity of brain dead organ donors

Brain death is accompanied by a loss of homeostatic mechanisms leading to physiologic changes which have been shown to be detrimental to donor organs prior to procurement [2,4]. The management of the brain dead organ donor (BDOD) is frequently left to transplant coordinators, often registered nurses, who follow standardized protocols for that management. The use of a standardized protocol assumes that these donors display homogeneity. To investigate this assumption, the anesthesiology fellows and faculty involved in multiorgan transplantation at the Baylor University Medical Center/UTSWMC conducted a study into the perioperative hemodynamics of the BDOD.