title: Donation after cardiac death: a 29-year experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To report the long-term outcomes of 1218 organs transplanted from donation after cardiac death (DCD) donors from January 1980 through December 2008.
  
  
  METHODS
  One-thousand two-hundred-eighteen organs were transplanted into 1137 recipients from 577 DCD donors. This includes 1038 kidneys (RTX), 87 livers (LTX), 72 pancreas (PTX), and 21 DCD lungs. The outcomes were compared with 3470 RTX, 1157 LTX, 903 PTX, and 409 lung transplants from donors after brain death (DBD).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both patient and graft survival is comparable between DBD and DCD transplant recipients for kidney, pancreas, and lung after 1, 3, and 10 years. Our findings reveal a significant difference for patient and graft survival of DCD livers at each of these time points. In contrast to the overall kidney transplant experience, the most recent 16-year period (n = 396 DCD and 1,937 DBD) revealed no difference in patient and graft survival, rejection rates, or surgical complications but delayed graft function was higher (44.7% vs 22.0%; P < .001). In DCD LTX, biliary complications (51% vs 33.4%; P < .01) and retransplantation for ischemic cholangiopathy (13.9% vs 0.2%; P < .01) were increased. PTX recipients had no difference in surgical complications, rejection, and hemoglobin A1c levels. Surgical complications were equivalent between DCD and DBD lung recipients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This series represents the largest single center experience with more than 1000 DCD transplants and given the critical demand for organs, demonstrates successful kidney, pancreas, liver, and lung allografts from DCD donors.
authors: Division of Organ Transplantation, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI 53792-7375, USA.
authors: Janet M
authors: JM
authors: Bellingham
authors: Chandrasekar
authors: C
authors: Santhanakrishnan
authors: Nikole
authors: N
authors: Neidlinger
authors: Philip
authors: P
authors: Wai
authors: Jim
authors: J
authors: Kim
authors: Silke
authors: S
authors: Niederhaus
authors: Glen E
authors: GE
authors: Leverson
authors: Luis A
authors: LA
authors: Fernandez
authors: David P
authors: DP
authors: Foley
authors: Joshua D
authors: JD
authors: Mezrich
authors: Jon S
authors: JS
authors: Odorico
authors: Robert B
authors: RB
authors: Love
authors: Nilto
authors: N
authors: De Oliveira
authors: Hans W
authors: HW
authors: Sollinger
authors: Anthony M
authors: AM
authors: D'Alessandro
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001926:Brain Death; D003643:Death; D005260:Female; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D016040:Lung Transplantation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016035:Pancreas Transplantation; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000209:etiology; D012086:Reoperation; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement; D019737:Transplants / Q000009:adverse effects; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014922:Wisconsin