Attitudes of healthcare providers towards cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death: a Canadian nation-wide survey

The American Society of Transplant Surgeons Consensus Statement on Normothermic Regional Perfusion

On June 3, 2023, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons convened a meeting in San Diego, California to (1) develop a consensus statement with supporting data on the ethical tenets of thoracoabdominal normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) and abdominal NRP; (2) provide guidelines for the standards of practice that should govern thoracoabdominal NRP and abdominal NRP; and (3) develop and implement a central database for the collection of NRP donor and recipient data in the United States. National and international leaders in the fields of neuroscience, transplantation, critical care, NRP, Organ Procurement Organizations, transplant centers, and donor families participated. The conference was designed to focus on the controversial issues of neurological flow and function in donation after circulatory death donors during NRP and propose technical standards necessary to ensure that this procedure is performed safely and effectively. This article discusses major topics and conclusions addressed at the meeting.

Ethics of non-therapeutic research on imminently dying patients in the intensive care unit

Non-therapeutic research with imminently dying patients in intensive care presents complex ethical issues. The vulnerabilities of the imminently dying, together with societal disquiet around death and dying, contribute to an intuition that such research is beyond the legitimate scope of scientific inquiry. Yet excluding imminently dying patients from research hinders the advancement of medical science to the detriment of future patients. Building on existing ethical guidelines for research, we propose a framework for the ethical design and conduct of research involving the imminently dying. To enable rapid translation to practice, we frame the approach in the form of eight ethical questions that researchers and research ethics committees ought to answer prior to conducting any research with this patient population. (1) Does the study hypothesis require the inclusion of imminently dying patients? (2) Are non-therapeutic risks and burdens minimised consistent with sound scientific design? (3) Are the risks of these procedures no more than minimal risk? (4) Are these non-therapeutic risks justified insofar as they are reasonable in relation to the anticipated benefits of the study? (5) Will valid informed consent be obtained from an authorised surrogate decision maker? (6) How will incidental findings be handled? (7) What additional steps are in place to protect families and significant others of research participants? (8) What additional steps are in place to protect clinical staff and researchers? Several ethical challenges hinder research with imminently dying patients. Nonetheless, provided adequate protections are in place, non-therapeutic research with imminently dying patients is ethically justifiable. Applying our framework to an ongoing study, we demonstrate how our question-driven approach is well suited to guiding investigators and research ethics committees.

Protocol for a qualitative pilot study to explore ethical issues and stakeholder trust in the use of normothermic regional perfusion in organ donation in Canada

INTRODUCTION

The process of controlled organ donation after circulatory determination of death (cDCDD) results in ischaemic injury to organs and leads to poorer outcomes in organ recipients. Although not yet used in Canada, normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) is a perfusion technology used postmortem with cDCDD donors to selectively restore perfusion of oxygenated blood to target organs in situ, reversing ischaemic injury and improving organ viability and post-transplant outcomes. However, NRP poses significant ethical challenges. To preserve trust in deceased donation, these ethical challenges must be addressed to the satisfaction of Canadian stakeholders before NRP's implementation. This study will identify ethical issues pertaining to NRP and explore perspectives of NRP among key stakeholders. By developing an explanatory framework delineating how stakeholder perceptions of NRP's ethical implications impact trust in Canada's donation and transplantation systems, this study will inform the development of responsible policy on NRP's use in Canada.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This study includes two workstreams. Workstream 1 is a scoping review of medical and bioethical literature to identify ethical issues stemming from NRP. We will apply a common search string across Medline, PubMed (other than Medline) and Embase to identify relevant articles. We will identify grey literature through Google searches, websites of organ donation organisations and consultation with our research network. No date limits will be applied. All peer-reviewed publications, commentaries, editorials or documents that engage with ethical issues in NRP (or conceptual and empirical issues as they relate to these ethical issues) will be included. News articles, conference abstracts and publications not in English will be excluded. Workstream 2 consists of interviews with healthcare providers, institutional stakeholders, organ recipients and deceased donors' family members (n=24-36), as well as focus groups with healthcare providers involved in deceased donation and transplantation (n=20-32). Constructivist grounded theory methodology will guide data collection and analysis in workstream 2.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study was approved by Western University's research ethics committee (Western REM; ID: 120001). All participants will be asked to provide written informed consent to participate. Findings will be shared with Canadian organ donation and transplantation organisations, presented at national conferences and published in medical journals.

A scoping review of the perceptions of death in the context of organ donation and transplantation

BACKGROUND

Socio-cultural perceptions surrounding death have profoundly changed since the 1950s with development of modern intensive care and progress in solid organ transplantation. Despite broad support for organ transplantation, many fundamental concepts and practices including brain death, organ donation after circulatory death, and some antemortem interventions to prepare for transplantation continue to be challenged. Attitudes toward the ethical issues surrounding death and organ donation may influence support for and participation in organ donation but differences between and among diverse populations have not been studied.

OBJECTIVES

In order to clarify attitudes toward brain death, organ donation after circulatory death and antemortem interventions in the context of organ donation, we conducted a scoping review of international English-language quantitative surveys in various populations.

STUDY APPRAISAL

A search of literature up to October 2020 was performed, using multiple databases. After screening, 45 studies were found to meet pre-specified inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

32 studies examined attitudes to brain death, predominantly in healthcare professionals. In most, around 75% of respondents accepted brain death as equivalent to death of the person. Less common perspectives included equating death with irreversible coma and willingness to undertake organ donation even if it caused death. 14 studies examined attitudes to organ donation following circulatory death. Around half of respondents in most studies accepted that death could be confidently diagnosed after only 5 min of cardiorespiratory arrest. The predominant reason was lack of confidence in doctors or diagnostic procedures. Only 6 studies examined attitudes towards antemortem interventions in prospective organ donors. Most respondents supported minimally invasive procedures and only where specific consent was obtained.

CONCLUSIONS

Our review suggests a considerable proportion of people, including healthcare professionals, have doubts about the medical and ethical validity of modern determinations of death. The prognosis of brain injury was a more common concern in the context of organ donation decision-making than certainty of death.

Paving the Road for the Adoption of Normothermic Regional Perfusion in Canada

Donation after circulatory determination of death has increased the number of organs available but can result in worse recipient outcomes than organs recovered from donors after neurologic death. Normothermic regional perfusion is a novel tool that can circumvent the shortcomings of donation after circulatory determination of death. However, its implementation may pose a threat to existing laws surrounding death declaration. Here, we propose a research agenda that will allow this technology to be introduced within current Canadian organ donation frameworks.

Current opinion in pediatric heart transplantation

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Cardiac transplant remains the most effective therapy for children with end-stage heart disease. Outcomes remain better than any alternative therapy for this condition, but its use is limited by donor organ availability. As a result, waitlist times and mortality on the waiting list remain unacceptably high. Novel approaches are necessary to address this problem.

RECENT FINDINGS

Organ Procurement and Transplant Network/United Network for Organ Sharing readjusted the pediatric heart allocation system in 2016 to prioritize children at highest risk of mortality, encourage judicious listing, and improve appropriate donor organ utilization. Subsequent studies have aligned with these priorities to help risk-stratify patients at the time of listing and identify the importance that should be assigned to donor-specific factors. In addition, many authors are advocating for increased utilization of hearts donated after cardiac death. Pediatric Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) application has also been increasing to help decrease waitlist mortality. Although results have significantly improved, there remain important limitations to widespread use of VADs in the pediatric population. This has prompted novel techniques such as pulmonary artery banding to improve cardiac function and, in some cases, promote recovery. The demand for cardiac replacement continues to increase with an ageing population of patients with congenital heart disease, presenting new challenges and stressors to the system.

SUMMARY

Pediatric cardiac transplant outcomes are excellent but remain plagued by the limited supply of donor organs. Recent strategies to combat this problem have focused on judicious listing, maximal utilization of available donor organs, and safely extending the lives of patients on the waitlist. New demands on the organ supply chain will continue to stress the system, making these efforts of the highest importance.Clinical Trial Registry Number not applicable.

Heart donation and transplantation after circulatory determination of death: expert guidance from a Canadian consensus building process

Controlled donation after circulatory determination of death (DCD), where death is determined after cardiac arrest, has been responsible for the largest quantitative increase in Canadian organ donation and transplants, but not for heart transplants. Innovative international advances in DCD heart transplantation include direct procurement and perfusion (DPP) and normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). After death is determined, DPP involves removal and reanimation of the arrested heart on an ex situ organ perfusion system. Normothermic regional perfusion involves surgically interrupting (ligating the aortic arch vessels) brain blood flow after death determination, followed by restarting the heart and circulation in situ using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The objectives of this Canadian consensus building process by a multidisciplinary group of Canadian stakeholders were to review current evidence and international DCD heart experience, comparatively evaluate international protocols with existing Canadian medical, legal, and ethical practices, and to discuss implementation barriers. Review of current evidence and international experience of DCD heart donation (DPP and NRP) determined that DCD heart donation could be used to provide opportunities for more heart transplants in Canada, saving additional lives. Although candid discussion identified a number of potential barriers and challenges for implementing DCD heart donation in Canada, it was determined that DPP implementation is feasible (pending regulatory approval for the use of an ex situ perfusion device in humans) and in alignment with current medical guidelines for DCD. Nevertheless, further work is required to evaluate the consistency of NRP with current Canadian death determination policy and to ensure the absence of brain perfusion during this process.

Cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death: protocol for a mixed-methods study of healthcare provider and public perceptions in Canada

INTRODUCTION

Cardiac transplantation remains the best treatment for patients with end-stage heart disease that is refractory to medical or device therapies, however, a major challenge for heart transplantation is the persistent discrepancy between the number of patients on waiting lists and the number of available hearts. While other countries (eg, UK, Australia and Belgium) have explored and implemented alternative models of transplantation, such as cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD) to alleviate transplantation wait times, ethical concerns have hindered implementation in some countries. This study aims to explore the attitudes and opinions of healthcare providers and the public about cardiac DCDD in order to identify and describe opportunities and challenges in ensuring that proposed cardiac DCDD procedures in Canada are consistent with Canadian values and ethical norms.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

This study will include two parts that will be conducted concurrently. Part 1 is a qualitative study consisting of semi-structured interviews with Canadian healthcare providers who routinely care for organ donors and/or transplant recipients to describe their perceptions about cardiac DCDD. Part 2 is a convergent parallel mixed-methods design consisting of a series of focus groups and follow-up surveys with members of the Canadian general public to describe their perceptions about cardiac DCDD.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at Western University. The findings will be presented at regional and national conferences and reported in peer-reviewed publications.

Acceptability of cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death: a survey of the Canadian public

PURPOSE

Cardiac transplantation is a definitive therapy for end-stage heart failure, but demand exceeds supply. Cardiac donation after circulatory determination of death (cardiac DCDD) can be performed using direct procurement and perfusion (DPP), where cardiac activity is restored after heart recovery, or (NRP), where brain blood supply is surgically interrupted, circulation to the thoraco-abdominal organs is restored within the donor's body, followed by heart recovery. While cardiac DCDD would increase the number of heart donors, uptake of programs has been slowed in part because of ethical concerns within the medical community. These debates have been largely devoid of discussion regarding public perceptions. We conducted a national survey of public perceptions regarding cardiac DCDD.

METHODS

We surveyed 1,001 Canadians about their attitudes towards cardiac DCDD using a rigorously designed and pre-tested survey.

RESULTS

We found that 843 of 1,001 respondents (84.2%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 81.8 to 86.3) accepted the DPP approach, 642 (64.1%; 95% CI, 61.1 to 67.0) would agree to donate their heart using DPP, and 696 (69.5%; 95% CI, 66.6 to 72.3) would consent to the same for a family member. We found that 779 respondents of 1,001 respondents (77.8%; 95% CI, 75.1 to 80.3) accepted the NRP approach, 587 (58.6%; 95% CI, 55.5 to 61.6) would agree to donate their heart using NRP, and 636 (63.5%; 95% CI, 60.5 to 66.4) would consent to the same for a family member. Most respondents supported the implementation of DPP (738 respondents or 73.7%; 95% CI, 70.9 to 76.3) and NRP (655 respondents or 65.4%; 95% CI, 62.4 to 68.3) in Canada.

CONCLUSION

The results of this national survey of public attitudes towards cardiac DCDD will inform the implementation of cardiac DCDD programs in a manner that is consistent with public values.