The International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement (ISODP) is the organization advancing donation through science, developing professionals and inspiring networks supporting organ donation to improve organ transplantation worldwide (source). The ISODP Journal Watch is an educational resource andbenefit to the ISODP members. “Two of the primary goals for the Society are to enhance resources to improve donation practices and to establish an integrated network of donation professionals.”
The ultimate goal of Journal Watch would be to lead to the creation of a journal entirely dedicated to organ donation.
Register to the newsletter here
The International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement (ISODP) is the organization advancing donation through science, developing professionals and inspiring networks supporting organ donation to improve organ transplantation worldwide. (Source) The ISODP Journal Watch is an educational resource andbenefit to the ISODP members. “Two of the primary goals for the Society are to enhance resources to improve donation practices and to establish an integrated network of donation professionals.”
The ultimate goal of Journal Watch would be to lead to the creation of a journal entirely dedicated to organ donation.
Register to the newsletter here
Thanks to Canadian Blood Services for supporting the ISODP Journal Watch.

INTRODUCTION

A Canadian team led by Dr. Sonny Dhanani and Dr. Matthew Weiss is hosting the ISODP Journal Watch in 2023, having previously taken care of the 2022 issues as well. The team has organized a collaborative effort to review and compile the most relevant donation and transplantation manuscripts from various sources. The Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP) and the team ensure that the editions are delivered in a practical dissemination format for Canadian and international colleagues. The editions are prepared with significant assistance from CDTRP trainees Amina Silva and Aisha Adil, as well as David Thomson and CDTRP Communications Manager, Stéphanie Larivière.

The team welcomes feedback and is looking forward to an interesting year in review!

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2023 EDITIONS 

DOWNLOAD THE APRIL 2023 EDITION.

This edition has an emphasis on ethical issues and how to improve a systems response to the needs of diverse populations. Two articles on ethical controversies surrounding interpretation of the dead donor rule, an evaluation of the rights of indigenous people in the changes of a consent model, and a review of socio-cultural factors that influence pediatric donation consent rates. Other topics covered include a review of quality improvement indicators in donation and a retrospective review of adverse events during pediatric apnea testing.

As always this set of articles represents a small sample of the breadth of exciting work going on in the field of donation science and ethics research. The included articles were generated from teams working in North America, the UK, and China, and of course the excellent reviews include work gathered from across the world. Together the international donation research community continues to generate knowledge and analyses that will help us all create better systems to honor the wishes of those who wish to donate.

DOWNLOAD THE JUNE 2023 EDITION.

This all Canadian edition highlights the publication of two major Canadian-led best practice statements. The first is a major overhaul of the definition of death guidelines in Canada. While the main guideline document is impressive in and of itself, the accompanying publications, all available as Open Access publications of the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, represent an enormous amount of work by dozens of multi-disciplinary professionals who worked to summarize the existing literature informing the topics that were included in the guidelines. The result is the world’s most up-to-date examination of what death is, how it should be determined, and how best to communicate the concept of death to families.

The other Canadian-led best practice series is the output of the International Donation and Transplantation Legislative and Policy Forum. This Forum assembled 61 donation and transplantation stakeholders – from ODO administrative leads to patient partners – in the hope of creating general recommendations that jurisdictions around the world could apply to creating or improving a donation and transplantation system. The resulting seven manuscripts available Open Access from Transplantation Direct (with one more still underway!) cover a huge range of legal and policy issues that could be adapted to any local reality.

Finally, we included a scoping review of transplant outcomes from donations after medical assistance in dying (often referred to as voluntary euthanasia elsewhere) work that was co-authored by members of our Journal Watch team.

DOWNLOAD THE SEPTEMBER 2023 EDITION.

As always, this issue focuses on a broad set of donation related issues. Two of the papers were recommendations, one a set of GRADE generated recommendations on DCD from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons and another a look at the 10 most important lessons from the widely promoted Spanish Model. Two other papers look at particularly ethically trying situations, one on how American physicians respond to refusals by patients of pediatric patients to accept a diagnosis of death determined by neurologic criteria, the other a report of 10 years of activity of donation after voluntary euthanasia in the setting of psychiatric disease. Finally, a scoping review covers the actual outcomes of neonatal referral for organ donation. 

DOWNLOAD THE NOVEMBER 2023 EDITION.

In this issue, we bring together global experiences from Canada, US, Spain, Brazil, and Turkey. We all grapple with similar issues and through the science of donation and knowledge translation efforts like the ISDOP Journal Watch, we hope to share our common experiences and highlight successes that will impact systems and support patients and families worldwide. Thank you to all for the work you do to make lives better.

2022 EDITIONS 

DOWNLOAD THE MARCH 2022 EDITION.

For this first edition we have chosen six articles that touch on a variety of donation related issues, from the efficacy of a web-based education intervention in Malaysia, to the evaluation of controlled DCD implementation in France. One of the articles and its commentary discuss the neurophysiology of a normothermic regional perfusion (NPR) animal model with potential ethical implications. New practices are reviewed in a study of the results of lung transplantation after Medical Assistance in Dying (voluntary euthanasia) in Canada and a Spanish look at liver outcomes after abdominal NRP. Finally, an often overlooked aspect of the donation process, donor family aftercare, is examined in a joint paper from 15 European countries. 

DOWNLOAD THE JUNE 2022 EDITION.

This edition of the Journal Watch focuses mainly on aspects of system development, from how to measure and compare performance metrics to what are the signs of work-related issues we should be monitoring for in donor coordinators. There is an analysis of how even similarly structured systems in the UK and Australia can be very difficult to compare using currently collected data. There is also a report from an international round table explored how donation after voluntary euthanasia (also known as medical assistance in dying) has been integrated into end-of-life care in a few countries, a description of DCD protocol variations in the area covered by an organ donation organization in the United States, and others.

DOWNLOAD THE SEPTEMBER 2022 EDITION.

This edition of the Journal Watch contains a selection of articles that cover a wide range of donation topics. This includes publications that touch on the risks in determining brain death after a decompressive craniectomy, the potential for successful donation after out of hospital cardiac arrest, management of the potential lung donor, and a deeply researched review of the position of the world’s major monotheistic religions on organ donation. Other topics include a report on extensive surveys with families who have gone through the donation process, a pathway to convert a potential in an actual organ donor, and a randomized trial of a workplace intervention for intent to donate registries.

DOWNLOAD THE DECEMBER 2022 EDITION.

As 2022 winds down, this is the last edition delivered straight from the North Pole. As always, the team is pleased to report a diverse selection of articles with topics ranging from public outreach to specific communities to artificial intelligence predictions of time to death after terminal extubation. The topics selected will certainly inform practice and policy, but more importantly they open avenues of future investigation, highlighting areas that require a better understanding from donation stakeholders. Start looking for grants and don’t be afraid to seek out collaborators among these authors!

Dr. Sonny Dhanani

Dr. Dhanani is the chief of the pediatric intensive care unit at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa and Professor (Pediatrics) at the University of Ottawa. He is now the Chair of the Canadian Donation Physician Network, Chair of Canadian Blood Services’ national Deceased Donation Advisory Committee, and steering committee member of Health Canada’s Organ Donation and Transplantation Collaborative. Dr. Dhanani is Associate Director for donation research for the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program. His own area of focus is leading international research pertaining to practices and standards for determining death after cardiac arrest for the purposes of donation.

Dr. Matthew Weiss

Dr. Weiss is a pediatric intensivist working in Quebec City at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec and an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at the Université Laval. He has multiple provincial and national donation roles, most notably as medical director of donation at Transplant Québec. His research interests mainly focus on the implementation of legislative and policy reform in organ donation. He is the national lead of the LEADDR research program on implementation of reforms in Nova Scotia and had led or collaborated in the development of several deceased donation best practice guidelines. His multiple peer reviewed publications touch on diverse aspects of adult and pediatric donation. Dr. Weiss has presented on these topics in local, national, and international scientific conferences and is a frequent communicator of donation policies and practices in media outlets.

  • matthew.weiss.med@ssss.gouv.qc.ca