Transplant coordination as the "keystone" in non-heart-beating donations.

The shortage of donated organs has become a problem in the transplantation world. Transplant teams are continuously looking for new ways to increase and improve the donor pool. Non--heart-beating donors could be a source for increasing the number of donors, even though in some countries legal, ethical, or logistical problems obstruct the development of that source. The good results obtained by some groups working with non--heart-beating donors should stimulate others to implement this type of policy in their hospitals. We describe the origin and development of our policy on non--heart-beating donation, which has become the main source for organ donation in our hospital. We have found that the 5-year survival rate for kidneys from these donors is similar to the survival rate for kidneys obtained from brain-dead donors, and this encourages us to continue to use kidneys from non--heart-beating donors.