UK aims to increase its organ donor rate by 50% over next eight years

BMJ ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 347 (jul11 9) ◽  
pp. f4500-f4500
Author(s):  
N. Hawkes
Keyword(s):  
Organ Donor ◽  
Donor Rate

scholarly journals Xenotransplantation: A Potential Solution to the Critical Organ Donor Shortage

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Howe Sim ◽  
Anton Marinov ◽  
Gary A Levy
Keyword(s):  
Waiting Times ◽  
Organ Donor ◽  
Presumed Consent ◽  
Donor Rate ◽  
Unrelated Donors ◽  
Critical Organ ◽  
Donor Shortage ◽  
The Many ◽  
End Stage ◽  
Living Related

The success of allotransplantation as a treatment for end-stage organ failure has resulted in the need for an increasing number of organ donors. Attempts to meet this need include the use of organs from living related and unrelated donors, financial or other incentives for the donor family, and even the reuse of transplanted organs. Despite these initiatives, the supply of organs for transplantation still falls far short of the demand, as evidenced by longer waiting times for transplantation and decreasing transplantation rates. Even if Canada were able to increase its organ donor rate to that of Spain (40 to 50/million), where organ donation is governed by ‘presumed consent’ legislation, this would not alleviate the problem of donor shortage. Interest in xenotransplantation stems from the need to overcome this increasingly severe shortage of human organs. Indeed, some argue that xenotransplantation is the only potential way of addressing this shortage. As immunological barriers to xenotransplantation are better understood, those hurdles are being addressed through genetic engineering of donor animals and the development of new drug therapies. However, before xenotransplantation can be fully implemented, both the scientific/medical communities and the general public must seriously consider and attempt to resolve the many complex ethical, social and economic issues that it presents.

Organ Donor Issues for the Intensive Care Physician

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 269-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis L. Delmonico ◽  
Jeffrey C. Reese ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
Organ Donor ◽  
Care Physician ◽  
Intensive Care Physician

scholarly journals Inducible Pluripotent Stem Cells as a Potential Cure for Diabetes

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 278
Author(s):  
Kevin Verhoeff ◽  
Sarah J. Henschke ◽  
Braulio A. Marfil-Garza ◽  
Nidheesh Dadheech ◽  
Andrew Mark James Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Pluripotent Stem Cells ◽  
Islet Cells ◽  
Artificial Pancreas ◽  
Glucose Monitoring ◽  
Organ Donor ◽  
Subcutaneous Insulin ◽  
Islet Cell Transplantation ◽  
Brittle Diabetes ◽  
Novel Approach

Over the last century, diabetes has been treated with subcutaneous insulin, a discovery that enabled patients to forego death from hyperglycemia. Despite novel insulin formulations, patients with diabetes continue to suffer morbidity and mortality with unsustainable costs to the health care system. Continuous glucose monitoring, wearable insulin pumps, and closed-loop artificial pancreas systems represent an advance, but still fail to recreate physiologic euglycemia and are not universally available. Islet cell transplantation has evolved into a successful modality for treating a subset of patients with ‘brittle’ diabetes but is limited by organ donor supply and immunosuppression requirements. A novel approach involves generating autologous or immune-protected islet cells for transplant from inducible pluripotent stem cells to eliminate detrimental immune responses and organ supply limitations. In this review, we briefly discuss novel mechanisms for subcutaneous insulin delivery and define their shortfalls. We describe embryological development and physiology of islets to better understand their role in glycemic control and, finally, discuss cell-based therapies for diabetes and barriers to widespread use. In response to these barriers, we present the promise of stem cell therapy, and review the current gaps requiring solutions to enable widespread use of stem cells as a potential cure for diabetes.

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