Organ Donor Research: Overcoming Challenges, Increasing Opportunities

A substantial gap exists between the need for organ transplants and the number of transplants performed each year in the US. In 2016, 27630 organs were transplanted from 9,971 deceased donors and 5980 additional organs from living donors, but as of Sep 29, 2017, a total of 116,602 individuals were included on the nation's organ transplant wait lists. This gap remains despite increases in the number of both donated organs and organ transplants in recent years. In 2015, close to 5000 organs from deceased donors were discarded because they were deemed unsuitable for transplantation. To improve the coordination and sharing of information about preferences of the decedents, all active donor registries should work together to ensure that there is a single, unified, and secure national donor registry that automatically incorporates information collected by departments of motor vehicles and that organ procurement organizations can easily access. This vision of organ donor intervention research will require vigorous efforts by and cooperation among the various groups in the transplant community.