70% of brain-dead children's organs go to adults

By Yun Suh-young

Seven in 10 organs donated from child and teenage brain death patients were transplanted into adult patients last year, according to a report published Monday.

A 2012 report published by the Korean Society for Transplantation (KST) showed that pediatric cases of liver transplants only took up 5.4 percent or 243 cases out of the total number of liver transplants.

Of these, 19.8 percent or 48 cases were transplants of livers donated from brain dead patients. Liver transplants using organs from live people stood at 80.2 percent or 195 cases.

The research was published in the annual academic journal of the KST under the title “Status and Current Problems in the Allocation System for Pediatric Liver Transplantation in Korea.” The paper was written by a group of surgeon-professors at Seoul National University College of Medicine.

The data was analyzed from January 2006 through March 2012 on reports published between 2008 and 2010 at the Korean Network for Organ Sharing (KONOS). Around 4,500 reports on liver transplants were analyzed.

The report showed that out of the total 1,371 liver donors, 85 were child brain-dead patients. Oddly, 68 percent of their livers or 58 of them were transplanted into adult patients. From donors of ages between 11 and 20, 82.1 percent of the livers were transplanted to adult patients.

On the other hand, the number of livers from adult donors transplanted into child patients stood at only 54 cases or 4.1 percent of the total transplants.

This is unusual because in developed countries such as the United States, livers extracted from child brain-dead patients are usually transplanted to child patients. Split liver transplantation, where one liver is used for transplants in two patients, is also widely conducted.

However, the report showed that only 4.6% of cases in Korea were split transplants.

The report pointed out that the main reason for the low split rate was due to “few pediatric candidates on the waiting list due to strict Korean regulatory requirements for split candidate registration.”

“Under the current liver transplant allocation system, Korean children have less chance of receiving a liver graft from a deceased donor,” the report said.

“With improvements to the allocation system and the rules governing split liver transplants, children in need may have greater opportunities of receiving a deceased donor graft without negatively affecting adult recipients.”