Donors After Circulatory Death: Theme of Present or a Future? The Research in West Poland.

The most urgent issue in transplantology nowadays is to increase the number of donors as replacement of lungs, heart, and liver in end-stage disease remains the only available method to save patients. Donors after brain death (DBD), these after irreversible cessation of brain function, represent 95% of all donors. On the contrary, donors after circulatory death (DCD), namely donors after irreversible detention of circulation, a group of great potential, is totally unused. The survey was done among 500 people from the medical staff of the intensive care unit and intensive cardiological care where the probability of receiving anonymous donation after circulatory death is the highest, yet only 368 people had completed the survey and their cases were taken into consideration as far as the study was concerned. The survey was conducted in the form of a self-projected questionnaire based on the Hospital Attitude Survey. The study showed that 98.4% of respondents accept the transplant. As many as 93.1% of people did not know the Maastricht classification, and 57.5% claimed that in Poland there is permission to take organs from people with a nonbeating heart. Ninety percent of respondents expressed their willingness to participate in training, and 70% of them were interested in the subject of the training presented in the questionnaire. At a time of such immense need for organs and such a huge disparity in the number of donors and recipients, DCD type of transplantation may be an alternative for patients whose waiting time for donation from a DBD would total a few years.