Transplants Flashcards
what is the concept of perfect contingency?
An individual is alive enough to give an organ, but dead enough to give it; the brain function is dead
Who performed the first successful heart transplant?
Dr. Barnaard
What does a surgeon need to conduct a successful heart transplant?
- a living person since a warm and beating heart has a greater chance to survive
- a dead person, since you are not supposed to kill someone to save someone else
Procedure to check for brain death
- Brain electrical activity must be twice tested at different times depending on the age of the patient
- Any automatic reflex
What can detect soft tissue activity?
fMRI
What is locked in syndrome?
Patients that are found in a state of unconsciousness they are stuck in their body, fully conscious; able to hear other people talk
What serves as the foundation of the concept of brain death in the US?
The 1968 Harvard Committee on Brain Death
What are the legally dead criteria?
- unreceptivity and unresponcivity
- no movements or breathing
- no reflexes
- flat electroencephalogram
they must be repeated at least 24hr and must be carried out by a medical examiner. neurologist, anaesthesiologist who are disinterested from transplantation.
What are the definitions of irreversible brain death according to the Harvard Committee on Brain Death?
- Clinically dead but then resiscitate [cardiac arrest with severe brain damage].
- legally dead but clinically alive
When did Italy pass a law that regulates transplants?
1999
In Italy, when is transplantation possible?
- In case of explicit prior consent
- In case of silence
In Italy, when is transplantation forbidden?
- In case of previous explicit dissent
- For commercial or non-therapeutic purposes
What did the Harvard committee conclude is the marker of life?
A working brain: neocortex+ brain stem
