Thursday, June 20, 2013

Kidney exchange about to begin in France?

The story (in French) is here: Dons croisés d'organe : c'est maintenant (ou presque) ! 

Here's Google translate:

"In France, the law authorizing donations cross between living persons of July 2011 and its implementing decree was published in the Official Journal in September 2012. With the development of matching software, the first cross-kidney donation could take place before the end of 2013. Experts expect twenty additional transplants per year in the country.
Organ donation called "crossover" allows a living person who has expressed its intention to grant the benefit of a receiver identified on hold, to be offered to participate in a cross organ donation in cases of medical incompatibility receiver initially selected. General ethical principles for donations and uses of elements and products of the human body must be met: consent to the collection, revocable at any time, free, anonymous; estimate of the risk / benefit of interventions and implementation of the system of health surveillance . That the pairing mechanism is put in place, there must be at least 50 "couples" of volunteers. The selection process is currently underway. Each donor should have a complete medical checkup. The "couples" then pass a special committee to verify the absence of coercion and financial dealings. The donor is heard by a court. Then the couples are reviewed by the National Center for allocating grafts, which decides on their eligibility or not the database pairs.
It must be the work of computerized winners of Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012 matching the Americans Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley. Their game theory has revolutionized the organization of cross donation for kidney transplantation in the United States by allowing the matching of thousands of donors and recipients of organs. It is estimated that about 2000 patients so far received a kidney through this system, without which they would not have been grafted.
On the occasion of the third day of the Biomedicine Agency, held in Paris on Thursday 30 and Friday, May 31, Marie-Alice Macher, the transplant center strategy, announced the start of the first cross donations, originally scheduled for last spring, was now imminent. "The matching software is ready, the agreements were signed with most departments of institutions, which must leave the operating room available in case of successful matching. The only thing we lack is a sufficient number of pairs of donors in the database, "she said. The logistics system is also heavy as to ensure the reciprocity of gifts, the two samples and two transplants must be performed simultaneously, requiring the mobilization of four operating theaters."

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