Title |
Benefit in liver transplantation: a survey among medical staff, patients, medical students and non-medical university staff and students
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Published in |
BMC Medical Ethics, February 2018
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DOI | 10.1186/s12910-018-0248-7 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Christine Englschalk, Daniela Eser, Ralf J. Jox, Alexander Gerbes, Lorenz Frey, Derek A. Dubay, Martin Angele, Manfred Stangl, Bruno Meiser, Jens Werner, Markus Guba |
Abstract |
The allocation of any scarce health care resource, especially a lifesaving resource, can create profound ethical and legal challenges. Liver transplant allocation currently is based upon urgency, a sickest-first approach, and does not utilize capacity to benefit. While urgency can be described reasonably well with the MELD system, benefit encompasses multiple dimensions of patients' well-being. Currently, the balance between both principles is ill-defined. This survey with 502 participants examines how urgency and benefit are weighted by different stakeholders (medical staff, patients on the liver transplant list or already transplanted, medical students and non-medical university staff and students). Liver transplant patients favored the sickest-first allocation, although all other groups tended to favor benefit. Criteria of a successful transplantation were a minimum survival of at least 1 year and recovery of functional status to being ambulatory and capable of all self-care (ECOG 2). An individual delisting decision was accepted when the 1-year survival probability would fall below 50%. Benefit was found to be a critical variable that may also trigger the willingness to donate organs. The strong interest of stakeholder for successful liver transplants is inadequately translated into current allocation rules. |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Unknown | 50 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
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Student > Bachelor | 9 | 18% |
Student > Ph. D. Student | 8 | 16% |
Researcher | 7 | 14% |
Librarian | 3 | 6% |
Professor > Associate Professor | 2 | 4% |
Other | 4 | 8% |
Unknown | 17 | 34% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Medicine and Dentistry | 8 | 16% |
Nursing and Health Professions | 5 | 10% |
Social Sciences | 3 | 6% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 2 | 4% |
Engineering | 2 | 4% |
Other | 4 | 8% |
Unknown | 26 | 52% |