Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Neurocritical care

Divining death—do we have the right tools for the job?

Nature Reviews Neurology volume 8, pages 421–422 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Given the national deficit in available organs for transplantation, substantial motivation exists to enhance procurement in the area of donation after cardiac death. This article reviews a new predictive tool that aims to identify donors dying within the viable time frame while reducing the human and resource implications of unsuccessful attempts.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

References

  1. Reported deaths and annual death rates per 1,000 patient-years at risk. Waiting list, 2000 to 2009. OPTN/SRTR Annual Report [online], (2010).

  2. Rabinstein, A. A. et al. Prediction of potential for organ donation after cardiac death in patients in neurocritical state: a prospective observational study. Lancet Neurol. 11, 414–419 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Lewis, J. et al. Development of the University of Wisconsin Donation After Cardiac Death Evaluation Tool. Prog. Transplant. 13, 265–273 (2003).

    Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. DeVita, M. A. et al. Donors after cardiac death: validation of identification criteria (DVIC) study for predictors of rapid death. Am. J. Transplant. 8, 432–441 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Yee, A. H., Rabinstein, A. A., Thapa, P., Mandrekar, J. & Wijdicks, E. F. Factors influencing time to death after withdrawal of life support in neurocritical patients. Neurology 74, 1380–1385 (2010).

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. The Organ Donation Research Consortium [online], (2012).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by Health Resources and Services Administration contract 234-2005-37011C. The content is the responsibility of the authors alone and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the US Government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Critical Care, Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington, Box 359724, 325 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, 98104, WA, USA

    Matthew R. Hallman & Michael J. Souter

Authors
  1. Matthew R. Hallman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael J. Souter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael J. Souter.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hallman, M., Souter, M. Divining death—do we have the right tools for the job?. Nat Rev Neurol 8, 421–422 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2012.127

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2012.127

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing