BMJ  2004;328:1260-1261 (22 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7450.1260-b

Letter

Death on the roads could be the chance of life for some

EDITOR—Tragic and wasteful as dying in a road traffic crash is, it is an opportunity for solid organ donation and procurement (liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs).¹

Although it is incumbent on governments and institutions such as the Medical Research Council to demand and develop strategies for reducing deaths from road traffic crashes, it is not unreasonable to believe that the same groups should promote every effort to support and sustain organ donation from people dying in such circumstances. Thus, some good might arise from an otherwise hopeless and seemingly futile situation.

Neither the European Liver Transplant Registry website (www.eltr.org) nor the recent paper on behalf of the same group states what proportion of patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation did so with an allograft from a dead donor who died as the result of a road traffic crash.² Of 5183 patients undergoing such transplantation in the United States between 1 July 2002 and 30 June 2003, 22.9% gained their allograft as the consequence of a motor vehicle crash.³

However, these data give no indication of the numbers of patients whose death as the result of a road traffic crash led to successful organ procurement for transplantation. Furthermore, so long as disparity in the laws on the status of dead people with respect to consent for organ donation exists between countries, then the opportunity for organ procurement and the gift of life for otherwise dying people will remain unfulfilled.

Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Room 105, Bell Research Building, Trent Drive, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA

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Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Roberts I, Abbasi K. War on the roads: two years on. BMJ 2004;328: 845. (10 April.)[Free Full Text]
2. Adam R, McMaster P, O'Grady JG, Castaing D, Klempnauer JL, Jamieson N, et al. Evolution of liver transplantation in Europe: report of the European liver transplant registry. Liver Transpl 2003;9: 1231-43.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline]
3. Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Transplant statistics: national reports. Available at: www.ustransplant.org (accessed 7 May 2004).

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War on the roads: two years on

Ian Roberts and Kamran Abbasi
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