An Analysis of Status of Cadaver Donors at the National Taiwan University Hospital: Eleven-Year Cases Review

Abstract

The Act of organ donation and brain death was legislated in Taiwan in 1987. Taiwan became the first Asian country to have a law to allow brain- dead patients to be organ donors. The purpose of this study was to analyze the status of cadaver donors in National Taiwan University hospital (NTUH ) in the past 10 years. We retrospectively collected data of all cadaver donors in NTUH from Jan. 1988 to Dec.1997. A total of 186 cadaver donors were collected. Fifty-six (30.1% ) donors donated only tissue after their death, 77(41.3%) donated only organs, and 53(28.3%) donated both organs and tissue. We in this study analyzed those 130 donors who donated organs with or without tissue after certification of brain death. One hundred and five (80.8%) were male, and 25 (19.2%) were female. Age was 31.0+12.8 years old in the male donors, and 23.6+12.0 in the female donors. Blood type distributions were O 51(39.2%), A 36 (27.7%), B 34 (26.1%), and AB 9 (70%). The etiologies of brain death were head injury in 110(84.6%) donors , cerebrovascular disease in 12 ( 9.2%), anoxia in 6 (4.6%), and brain tumor in 2 (1.5%). In this donor series, 77(40.8%) of 130 organ donors did not donate tissue, for example, cornea, skin, or bone. Because many people in Taiwan believed that eyes were needed to guide the souls after their death, the family usually did not consent enucleation of eyeballs for cornea donation. Many people misunderstood that skin and bone donation would cause disfigurement. These are reasons why many people donated organs only. Head injuries accounted for 84.6% of organ donors. This figure was much higher than those reported in the western countries. Most head injuries here were from motorcycle traffic accidents. From Jun. 1997 on, the law in Taiwan required motorcycle drivers to wear safety helmet. In the future, we should find more potential donors in other groups of patients instead of head-injured patients.