Living anonymous kidney donation: what does the public think?

BACKGROUND

Health professionals are increasingly turning to living organ donation to augment cadaveric donation. Although living donation is currently performed with donors who are either genetically or emotionally related to the recipient, a 1997 British Columbia Transplant Society survey indicated that 32% of BC residents would be willing to donate a kidney, while alive, to a stranger (unpublished data). The goal of this study is to tap the public pulse about the living anonymous donor (LAD) by replicating and expanding the 1997 findings.

METHODS

Five hundred BC residents completed a telephone survey including demographic information, questions about their organ donation behaviors and attitudes, and their willingness to donate a kidney, while alive, to particular individuals (child, spouse, parent, relative, friend, and stranger). To improve the methodological rigor of the 1997 study, an informed condition was added in the current study where participants learned about living donation before being asked about their willingness to donate.

RESULTS

There were no differences among the 1997 results and the two conditions in the 2000 survey. Twenty-eight percent of participants in the uninformed condition and 29% of participants in the informed condition indicated that they would be willing to be LADs. LADs were more likely than self-reported non-donors to have registered as cadaveric donors and to endorse attitudes that were congruent with wanting to donate to a stranger.

CONCLUSIONS

This study replicates the 1997 findings and increases confidence that a significant minority of British Columbians support living anonymous donation and that some would consider becoming LADs themselves.

8-aminoquinolines as anticoccidials - Part III

Analogues of the antimalarial pentaquine, 1, in which the nature of the side-chain on the 8-amino position was varied, were prepared and evaluated for anticoccidial activity both in vitro and in vivo. Specifically, both the inter-nitrogen distance and the nature of the terminal amino group were investigated. Novel analogues of equal or improved efficacy in vitro and in vivo to pentaquine were discovered.

8-Aminoquinolines as anticoccidials--II

During a chemistry program aimed at finding a novel analogue of pentaquine with improved in vivo activity, a number of hypotheses concerning the way this drug acts in the chicken were investigated. Consideration of the products of monoamine oxidase metabolism of pentaquine suggested that pentaquine aldehyde is the likely active metabolite. Although isolation of this unstable compound was not possible, oxime and cyclic acetal and ketal derivatives were obtained and shown to possess in vitro anticoccidial activity.

Carbocyclic frenolicin analogues: novel anticoccidial agents

Carbocyclic analogues of the antibacterial natural product frenolicin B have been synthesised. These analogues were active against parasitic protozoa of the genus Eimeria and represent a new series of anticoccidial agents. The synthesis of simplified analogues helped to define a possible pharmacophore for frenolicin.