UNOS Proposes To Refine Medical Urgency For Liver Transplant Candidates

RICHMOND VA

PRNewswire -- The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has approved for public comment a proposed scale to help better determine the medical urgency of patients awaiting a liver transplant and identify those at greater risk of dying quickly without a transplant.

"This is an essential first step in refining national liver transplant policy," said Todd Howard, M.D., chair of the UNOS Liver and Intestinal Organ Transplantation Committee. The committee endorsed the proposal for public comment at its July 19 meeting. "This sets the stage for consideration of the optimal area we should use in distributing livers to meet patients' needs."

The proposal is based on a predictive formula that considers certain medical test results to reach an objective, clinical assessment of the patient's risk of dying in the short term without a transplant. Those patients at greater risk would then receive higher priority in liver allocation policy. The proposal would not, however, change the criteria for Status 1, the highest level of medical urgency based upon severe, acute liver failure.

"While we can't predict risks for individual patients, we can see combinations of factors that highlight groups of patients who need liver transplants more urgently," said Dr. Howard. "This is an improvement over the way we've traditionally classified less urgent liver patients, which includes specific medical conditions."

The proposal will be formally distributed for public comment in mid-August. Any interested person or organization may submit written comments to UNOS. UNOS will also host a public forum in mid-September to discuss the proposal. The UNOS Liver and Intestinal Organ Transplantation Committee will then reconsider the proposal based on public comments before issuing formal recommendations to the UNOS Board of Directors at its November meeting.

UNOS maintains the U.S. organ transplant waiting list and brings together medical professionals, transplant recipients and donor families to develop organ allocation policy under contracts with the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. UNOS also collects, analyzes and publishes more data on a single field of medicine than any other U.S. organization.

Contact: Joel Newman of the United Network for Organ Sharing, 804-327-1432, or email: newsroom@unos.org

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This article posted September 9, 2000.