The Doctor José Molina Orosa University Hospital has carried out the first multi-organ extraction in controlled asystole in the health center, an intervention that has allowed two kidney transplants and one liver transplant to be performed.
The Ministry of Health explains that for the surgery, in which the Regional Transplant Coordination, the transplant coordinators of the islands and the National Transplant Organization have collaborated, a large health device has been organized in which professionals from the Lanzarote hospital and the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital, in Tenerife, specialized in the maintenance, evaluation and extraction of organs and tissues, intervened.
Thus, the team from the Tenerife center responsible for the intervention transferred an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) system to Lanzarote, an infrastructure necessary for this type of transplant that allows adequate support for the donor's organs with the priority objective of being transplanted in the best possible conditions.
The Transplant Coordination team of Molina Orosa, formed by the specialists in Intensive Medicine, Tamara Cantera and Priscila Carcelén and the nurse Penélope Gómez, and the medical management of the center, thanked both the relatives of the donor and the specialists who have participated in this device. They also expressed the possibility of continuing the line of collaboration with the rest of the transplant units of the hospitals of the Canary Islands that allow organ donation in asystole, thus guaranteeing a second chance to patients who require a transplant.
Donations in 2021
During 2021, the Canary Islands registered a total of 105 donations, of which 57 were due to brain death, 40 in controlled asystole and eight from living donors.
The asystole donation modality represents 41.2 percent of deceased donors. Donation in controlled asystole allows the donation of organs from people in whom the diagnosis of death has been established by circulatory and respiratory criteria.
For this type of donation to occur, it is a necessary condition that the death of the patient has been predicted in the short term under certain conditions; requiring, in addition, the implementation of a different infrastructure than that carried out with donors who died of brain death.
Regarding transplants, in 2021 a total of 184 were carried out in the Islands, of which 143 correspond to kidney transplants, 23 liver transplants, 17 heart transplants and one pancreatic transplant.
Currently, to facilitate organ donation, the person who wishes to be a donor can make an Advance Declaration of Will (MAV), a document that contains the instructions and options that should be respected by the health personnel who attend to the grantor regarding the care and treatment of their health; the provisions regarding the destination of their body and the donation of organs and tissues and for which you can make an appointment at 012 or consult the Health website.