Fatal drug overdoses increased donation, and the researchers said Monday that people who receive these transplants usually fare as well as patients given organs from more traditional donors.
The results can promote the use of organs from victims of overdose. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University found these transplants jumped almost 24 times, since 2000. This was before the overdose was to make the headlines or most of the transplant centers is the adoption of such bodies.
In 2016, there were 3,533 transplant through overdose associated with organ transplantation, only 149 such transplants in 2000, the study found.
The death rate from overdoses is increasing, but most occur outside of hospitals, blocking donation. After all, these deaths now account for about 13 percent of deaths in the country donors, compared with 1% in 2000, the researchers calculated.
“It is not the ideal and sustainable solution to the shortage of organs,” lead researcher Dr. Christine Durand wrote in the journal annals of internal medicine.
But with nearly 115 000 people in the national waiting list for a transplant, the Hopkins team concluded that the use of organs from an overdose “should be optimized”, because many candidates for transplantation may die waiting for another choice.
To school on Monday, the researchers used a registry of the United States, in order to compare the results of nearly 338,000 patients who received a transplant between 2000 and 2016, or from a donor who died of an illness, injury or overdose.
In General, the survival of the recipients was similar to the body from overdose. In fact, compared to donors who died from the disease, they sometimes lived a little better, because overdose donors tend to be younger and less likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes or other diseases that can affect organ function, said the researchers.
The study showed that overdose and its associated organs more often than other donor organs to be classified as “high risk” infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis C. but the Hopkins team said improved testing of all donor organs to detect infections and new, effective drugs for hepatitis C the overall risk for transplant candidates at least, and should be carefully weighed when determining the best option for individual patients.
“It’s nice that these bodies really work and give a lot of benefit,” said Dr. David Klassen, chief physician of the United network for organ that supervises the system in the United States transplantation. He was not involved in the study.
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