Patients with bone marrow transplant may present with acute, life-threatening complications which frequently (40% of our cases) require intensive care unit treatment and result in an increased mortality (76% in this series). In an attempt to reach a more objective prognostic assessment, we have analyzed those factors related to the worst outcome in the 25 patients with bone marrow transplant admitted into our intensive care unit. Respiratory failure was the most frequent complication (72%), with an 83% mortality. Graft-versus-host disease and neutropenia led to a greater number of infectious complications with a poor outcome. Failure of more than three organ systems, septic shock and mechanical ventilation were statistically associated with mortality (p less than 0.05), and all patients who required mechanical ventilation for more than seven days or needed intensive therapy for more than 10 days died. The presence of septic shock, multisystem failure and severe neutropenia on admission should be considered as initial indicators of a poor prognosis. More than 7 days of mechanical ventilation and an intensive care unit stay of more than 10 days could be critical points in the reassessment of the intensity and prolongation of treatment.
The Spanish Quality Assurance Program applied to the process of donation after brain death entails an internal stage consisting of a continuous clinical chart review of deaths in critical care units (CCUs) performed by transplant coordinators and periodical external audits to selected centers. This paper describes the methodology and provides the most relevant results of this program, with information analyzed from 206,345 CCU deaths. According to the internal audit, 2.3% of hospital deaths and 12.4% of CCU deaths in Spain yield potential donors (clinical criteria consistent with brain death). Out of the potential donors, 54.6% become actual donors, 26% are lost due to medical unsuitability, 13.3% due to refusals to donation, 3.1% due to maintenance problems and 3% due to other reasons. Although the national pool of potential donors after brain death has progressively decreased from 65.2 per million population (pmp) in 2001 to 49 pmp in 2010, the number of actual donors after brain death has remained at about 30 pmp. External audits reveal that the number of actual donors could be 21.6% higher if all potential donors were identified and preventable losses avoided. We encourage other countries to develop similar comprehensive approaches to deceased donation performance.
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