Background: Brain dead patients are the main source of organs for transplants. Brain death causes changes in peripheral organs. We define modifications of gene expression in specific pathways occurring in donor livers and their influence on gene expression profile of livers after transplant. Methods: We compared gene expression profile of both deceased donor livers and transplanted livers to ge...

BACKGROUND Much remains to be done to facilitate the transplantation process for patients with end-stage renal disease. The aim here was to explore these patients' experiences of the donation process and factors related to whether the actual donors of the recipients were living or deceased and describe which issues needed attention in a quality development project. METHOD A specially construc...

BACKGROUND Policy decisions about opt-in and opt-out consent for organ donation are based on limited evidence. To fill this gap we investigated the difference between deceased and living organ donation rates in opt-in and opt-out consent systems across a 13 year period. We controlled for extensive covariates and estimated the causal effect of consent with instrumental variables analysis. METH...

Socioeconomic disadvantage has been linked to reduced access to kidney transplantation. To understand and address potential barriers to transplantation, we used the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis and Transplant Registry and examined primary kidney-only transplantation among adult non-Indigenous patients who commenced chronic renal replacement therapy in Australia during 2000-2010. Socioecon...

Several recipient biomarkers are reported to predict graft dysfunction, but these are not useful in decision making for the acceptance or allocation of deceased donor kidneys; thus, it is necessary to develop donor biomarkers predictive of graft dysfunction. To address this issue, we prospectively enrolled 94 deceased donors and their 109 recipients who underwent transplantation between 2010 an...

The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 makes it illegal to buy or sell a kidney in the US, thus making donation the only viable option for kidney transplantation. A transplanted kidney from a live donor survives significantly longer than one from a deceased donor (see e.g. Mandal et al. 2003). Hence, live donation is always the first choice for a patient. Moreover, there is a significant sho...