Transplant Society to Expand System for Dispatching Doctors for Organ Procurement; Move Comes after Institutions Declined Donations

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:42 JST, September 15, 2024

The Japan Society for Transplantation is planning to expand its mutual support system for medical institutions, the society said on Saturday. The plan is aimed at eliminating instances of organ donations being declined.

Under the system, which was introduced in 2017, doctors are dispatched to short-staffed medical institutions to help procure organs and perform transplants.

While the system has been used to transplant kidneys, livers and pancreases, delays have been seen in heart and lung transplants due to differences in the techniques and procedures used at individual institutions, as well as other reasons.

The society now plans to promote the standardization of organ transplant techniques and procedures so that the mutual support system will be widely used in all organ transplants.

In principle, doctors at institutions that perform organ transplants not only do them in-house but also visit external facilities to surgically procure organs from brain-dead donors and perform transplants.

Under the mutual aid system, organ procurements are performed by a doctor from another medical institution, reducing the burden on transplant facilities.

The move to expand the system follows revelations that some medical institutions have declined organ donations due to a lack of personnel, among other reasons.

While a record 132 brain-dead organ donations were performed in Japan in 2023, three leading university hospitals where organ transplants are performed — the University of Tokyo Hospital, Kyoto University Hospital and Tohoku University Hospital — declined 62 organ donations, according to the society’s survey.

The plan was revealed by Minoru Ono, the society’s head, at an academic conference in Nagasaki on Saturday. He also expressed his intention to establish a committee to examine how to improve organ transplant facilities and secure personnel, saying, “We should improve the system for accepting organ donations at transplant facilities.”