Abstract
With the support of the government, Nagasaki Prefecture has improved the system of organ donation. The number of organ donors per capita is the second highest among all prefectures in Japan. Since amendment of the organ transplant law in 2010, organ donations in Japan after brain death has increased, but those after cardiac arrest have decreased. As a result, until 2014 the total number of organ donations has decreased. Before the law was amended, there were several donations after cardiac arrest from hospitals in Nagasaki Prefecture other than tertiary medical facilities, but none since the amendment. As part of the prefecture's support of the project financed by the Japan Organ Transplant Network for the implementation of organ donation, we performed retrospective research on 166 cases of death with emergency admission to two tertiary medical facilities in Nagasaki. Among these patients who were admitted to the hospitals during 2014, eleven patients with brain death and 25 with cardiac arrest were considered to be candidates for organ donation. Among these 36 candidates, only four patients' families were asked if they were interested in organ donation. Our study found that we might have been able to confirm the willingness of five more families to allow organ donation. Although we must take patients' satisfactory end of life into consideration, we also should present organ donation as one option when it occurs.
