Use of donor lungs drops to 29% in TN due to medical reasons
Member secretary of Transtan Dr N Gopalakrishnan, pointed out that finding the right recipient within the stipulated time frame has remained a challenge.
CHENNAI: The annual utilisation of donor lungs dropped to 29% last year from 43% in 2021, as per the recent data from Transplant Authority of Tamil Nadu (Transtan).
While lungs and hearts tend to have the lowest utilisation rate, the use of kidneys and livers is around 90%. Besides, in addition to the various compatibility checks, lung transplants are comparatively rare even today.
Of the total 10,003 organs transplanted in the State since 2008 (when Transtan began), there have been 785 lungs. Though the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 led to a drop in organ donations with 368 and 378 organ transplants respectively, these numbers greatly improved last year with 878 organ transplants.
Tamil Nadu recently received an award for best performing State in organ transplantation by the National Organ-Tissue Transplant Organisation under the Union Health Ministry. But, the utilisation needs a further boost.
Meanwhile, 91% of donor kidney have been used 90% of donor liver were used in 2022. While there is no significant drop in these figures, heart utilisation also dropped from 55% in 2021 to 44% in 2022.
Denying the impact of COVID-19 on the utilisation of donor lungs, Transtan officials said that lungs were rejected mainly because of long-COVID. “It’s visible in the initial investigations. So, such organs are not accepted for transplantation at an earlier stage. The impact on lungs is substantial due to long-COVID complications. There is scarring that would not heal for months or even years, post the recovery from COVID-19 and this makes lungs unfit for donation,” said a senior official of Transtan.
Member secretary of Transtan Dr N Gopalakrishnan, pointed out that finding the right recipient within the stipulated time frame has remained a challenge.
“Often, the organ is allotted as per the wait-list, and the institution receiving the lungs accepts for transplantation. But, when the organ is treated as per protocol, there are signs of infections and secretions, mainly in lungs, that leads to last-minute rejection,” he pointed out.
