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Understanding the Potential Value of Cardiovascular Brain Death Donors to Increase the Heart Donor Pool.
  • Nicolas Brozzi,
  • David Baran,
  • Federico Napoli
Nicolas Brozzi
Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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David Baran
Cleveland Clinic Florida
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Federico Napoli
Cleveland Clinic Florida
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Abstract

Multiple approaches in recent years have been implemented to address the persistent shortage of heart donors, including a recent modification of UNOS heart allocation system, expanding donor acceptance criteria, and adoption of novel techniques to utilize hearts from donors with circulatory death. The opioid epidemic has resulted in an exponential increase in deaths in the United States in recent years, particularly affecting younger adults. A recent analysis of UNOS database by Jenser et al. reveals a relative underutilization of heart donors with cardiovascular mechanism of brain death which provide similar long-term survival as donors with other mechanisms of brain death, highlighting the potential role of these donors to provide life saving cardiac allografts and mitigate the persistent shortage of hearts for transplantation.
31 Oct 2022Submitted to Journal of Cardiac Surgery
31 Oct 2022Submission Checks Completed
31 Oct 2022Assigned to Editor
31 Oct 2022Editorial Decision: Accept