Evaluation of the time of diagnosis of brain deaths notified to the Center for Transplants of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
- Autores: Dagoberto França Rocha, Rosana Reis Nothen, Sandra Rodrigues Santos, Priscilla Caroliny Oliveira
- Localización: Scientia Medica, ISSN-e 1980-6108, Vol. 25, Nº. 3, 2015
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
Aims: To evaluate how long it takes for the diagnosis of brain deaths notified to the Center for Transplants of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil, and to establish a relationship between the time needed for the diagnosis and the harvest of organs and their transplantation.
Methods: The study included brain death notifications to the Center for Transplants of Rio Grande do Sul for donors from 2003 to 2013. Information about the donors (place of origin, age, complexion, sex, and cause of death), about the diagnosis of brain death (date and time of day at which the protocol was created, time of the first and second clinical tests, and time of complementary examination), and about the harvested and transplanted organs and tissues was collected. The means between groups were compared by Student’s t test and ANOVA or by their nonparametric counterparts, i.e., Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests.
Results: A total of 492 donors were included in the study, among whom 275 (55.9%) were male. There was a predominance of individuals aged 40 to 59 years (222 donors or 45.2%). Stroke was the main cause of death (276 or 56.1%), and CT angiography was the most widely used complementary exam, performed in 177 (36%) individuals. Kidneys were the most frequently harvested organs (968 or 98.4%), being transplanted in 910 (94%) cases. Heart was the least frequently harvested organ (35 or 7.1%), with a transplantation rate of 100%. The average time between the clinical tests and the determination of brain death amounted to 8.9 and 14.1 hours, respectively. Protocols initiated during the night which included magnetic resonance angiography and electroencephalogram presented a higher average time. No significant difference was observed between the time needed for brain death diagnosis and organ harvest and transplantation.
Conclusions: The overall average time between clinical tests for the diagnosis of brain death was greater than that recommended by the Brazilian National Medical Council. However, the average time for the diagnosis of brain death was not a determining factor for the number of harvested and transplanted organs.
