Abstract

Background: In Texas, the COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with fewer deceased donor transplants. After observing a loss of momentum which might have pushed donation to record highs in early 2020, we sought to clarify the impact of changes in referral cause of death on organ donation during the early COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A pool of 28,491 referrals to a single organ procurement organization in Texas was used to measure associations between demographics and descriptors of death against donation likelihood. Referrals were compared between January-February 2019 (JF’19) versus 2020 (JF’20) and March-June 2019 (MJ’19) versus 2020 (MJ’20).

Results: Comparison between JF’19 and JF’20 revealed a 52.38% (63 to 96) increase in donors relative to a 5.86% decrease referral volume (5150 to 4848). Alternatively, MJ’20 had a 3.44% (9090 to 9403) increase in referral volume and a 8.61% decrease (151 to 138) in donors. In the MJ’20 time period, there was an increase in death referrals due to respiratory causes of death (OR=1.36) and infectious disease (OR=1.38). In contrast to the increase of donor conversion from referrals who died from gunshot (4.52), trauma (OR=4.52), asphyxiation (OR=12.86), and suicide (OR=5.65) from JF’19 to JF‘20, there was no increase in donor conversion from MJ’19 to MJ’20.

Conclusion: This paper analyzes various changes in organ transplantation trends that occurred.

Keywords: Branched-chain amino acids; Bioelectrical impedance analysis; Skeletal muscle mass; Sarcopenia; Zinc