Case Report Demonstrating the Safe and Effective Means of Expanding the Donor Pool With Livers Recovered From Brain-Dead Donors After Ethylene Glycol Toxicity

Transplant Proc. 2016 Nov;48(9):3064-3066. doi: 10.1016/j.transproceed.2016.04.003.

Abstract

The growing disparity between organ supply and demand has become the greatest hurdle facing transplant professionals and life-saving transplants. Because the organ shortage has become the rate-limiting step to effective transplants, it is critical for the transplant community to identify viable mechanisms to expand the donor pool and use every available allograft. Although using kidneys from deceased donors whose demise was secondary to ethylene glycol (EG) toxicity requires great deliberation and precise timing as described by Barbas et al [5], using hepatic allografts in this setting involves far less risk. The following is a discussion of a 61-year-old male who was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease secondary to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and ultimately underwent a life-saving transplant with a liver recovered from a donor with EG-induced brain death and allocated nationally due to trepidation by local and regional centers to use the liver from a donor after EG toxicity.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain Death*
  • End Stage Liver Disease / surgery*
  • Ethylene Glycol / poisoning
  • Humans
  • Liver Transplantation / methods*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Suicide
  • Tissue Donors / supply & distribution*
  • Tissue and Organ Procurement / methods*
  • Transplantation, Homologous / methods
  • Transplants / physiology

Substances

  • Ethylene Glycol