Increased Drug Intoxications Seen in Heart Transplant Donors During COVID-19 Pandemic.
J Heart Lung Transplant 2022. [PMCID:
PMC8988702 DOI:
10.1016/j.healun.2022.01.1129]
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Abstract
Purpose
The majority of heart transplant centers decline heart donors with known or suspected COVID-19. In addition to impacting donor utilization, we hypothesize that the COVID pandemic is associated with increased number of drug intoxication in heart donors.
Methods
The COVID pandemic was declared on March 11th, 2020. The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipient was analyzed during two 15-month eras: era 1 was defined as January 1st2019 - March 30th, 2020 and era 2 was defined as March 31th, 2020 - June 30th 2021. Donor populations are described by era and UNOS region. T-test was used for trend analysis.
Results
Era 1 identified 7,649 donor hearts and era 2 identified 8,475 donor hearts. There was a significant increase of 577 (45.2%) heart donors with drug intoxication identified as the cause of death from era 1 to era 2 (p<0.0001, Figure 1). There was an increase in heart donors from drug intoxication cross all UNOS regions, but the greatest increase was seen in UNOS region 5 (120.3%) followed by region 7 (69.1%) and region 4 (61.4%) (Figure 2).
Conclusion
More donor hearts were recovered for transplantation during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a notable increase in those who died from drug intoxication. This finding may reflect a psychosocial effect of the pandemic on the general population that has impacted the field of heart transplantation.
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