Pubdate: Fri, 23 Jun 2017 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2017 Times Colonist Contact: http://www.timescolonist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Author: Mia Robson Page: C2 TRANSPLANTS RISE WITH OPIOID DEATHS B.C. doctors see more organs coming from those who died of drug overdoses OTTAWA - Amid the growing death toll of Canada's opioid epidemic, there is evidence of a correlating increase in the number of healthy human organs available for transplant. The agency that manages organ donations and transplants in B.C. recently began tracking the data after doctors saw more organs coming from patients who had died of drug overdoses. B.C. Transplant said one quarter of the organs transplanted in the first six weeks of this year were donated by a patient who died of a fentanyl overdose. Out of the 51 people in B.C. who donated at least one organ after death between Jan. 1 and June 8, 25 had a positive toxicology test. Not all died of an overdose, nor did they all use opioids, but a spokeswoman for B.C. Transplant said the agency was definitely seeing an increase in organs from opioid-related deaths and was continuing to track and analyze the data. The agency doesn't have comparison figures on fentanyl deaths and organ donors from previous years because it didn't track it until recently. B.C. has been ground zero of the opioid epidemic in Canada, with 575 deaths from fentanyl alone last year - five times the number of 2015 deaths. Across the country, Canada saw an estimated 2,500 opioid-related deaths in 2016. There is reluctance in the medical community to talk about the transplant issue. B.C. Transplant issued a written statement, but would not make anyone available for comment. "It's heartbreaking any time someone dies suddenly in a way that makes them a candidate to become an organ donor - it's remarkable that the legacy of some of these people is giving the gift of life to someone waiting for a transplant," the statement said. Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott said she didn't want to "conflate" the opioid crisis and organ transplantation. "I don't want to talk about how they necessarily fit together," she said. "I would say they are both extremely serious matters that we need to be paying attention to." Transplant specialists at the University Health Network in Toronto, the largest transplant program in the country, likewise were not able to comment. The Toronto hospitals have no data on how many transplant donors died from a drug overdose. The number of organs available for transplant in the country has been on the rise in recent years, largely as a result of more education about the benefits of organ donation. In B.C., there were 20 organ donors in the first six weeks of this year, twice the number in the first six weeks of 2016. The number of fentanyl-related deaths in January and February rose to 139 in 2017 from 73 in 2016. The most current national data on organ donors is from 2015, when there were 652 deceased donors, as compared with those who donate an organ while they are still alive. That number was up from 598 in 2014. Half of the increase came in B.C. The United States is also seeing figures that suggest a correlation between the opioid crisis and organ donors. Dr. Randall Starling, head of heart failure and transplant medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told a Toronto conference last week about a record number of heart transplants in the United States in 2016, up 13.8 per cent compared with 2015. The United Network of Organ Sharing, which manages the U.S. organ-donation network, said the total number of organ donations in the United States was up nine per cent in 2016 and up 20 per cent compared with 2012. "Nobody knows why this happened, it's all speculation," Starling said. However, he said, the network has reported a higher percentage of organ donors dying of drug overdoses. "Our perception - and it's not a proven fact - is there, in part, are more organ donors of otherwise young healthy people that are dying from opioid overdoses," Starling said. Policies in both the U.S. and Canada require patients to provide informed consent before receiving a donated organ from an injection drug user. Starling said there remains a significant shortage of organs. In the U.S., only 1.2 per cent of patients with advanced heart failure who are awaiting a transplant actually receive a new heart. The Canadian Institute for Health Information said more than 4,500 people were waiting for a donor organ in 2015, with 262 people on the waiting list dying that year. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt