Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) – The oldest Czech donor of an organ for transplantation was 85 and the oldest recipient 81 last year, when a total of 837 organs from 269 dead donors and 49 living donors were transplanted, Milos Adamec, director of the Transplantation Coordination Centre, told journalists on Wednesday.
Due to the growing age of both donors and recipients and doctors’ efforts to save the lives, the dead donors’ organs are of a falling quality, Adamec said.
When it comes to transplants, the Czech Republic is among top world countries. Last year, the number of donors per one million population was the sixth highest in the world, Adamec said.
Roughly 1,200 people are on the waiting list. “The patients with a liver failure wait for three months, while in Germany, it is 18 months,” Adamec said.
Most of the dead donors are after their brain death, mostly caused by a spontaneous brain hemorrhage, hypoxia, stroke or brain injury in some accident.
“Along with the donors after the brain death, there is the group of patients whose hearts stop. This is the potential of some 10-40 percent of donors,” Premysl Fryda, a senior transplant expert, said.
In the Czech Republic, the law presumes the dead person’s consent with organ donorship. Disagreement can be voiced by their family members. Last year, there were ten such cases.
There is a special register for disagreement with organ donorship. Now it comprises some 1,500 people, Adamec said.
Kidney transplants are the most frequent ones in the Czech Republic. There were 469 of them last year.
