Seasonal trends in donor heart availability: an analysis of the UNOS database

Abstract

Summary Despite the widespread belief that donor organ availability varies around holidays and seasons, there is little empirical data supporting this long‐held belief. Variations in donor heart availability may be of interest to patients and clinicians. The UNOS/OPTN registry was queried for all heart donations from October 1987 through March 2017. Daily heart donation rates were modeled nationally using Poisson regression including splines for year and day of the year. Seasonality was assessed using a likelihood ratio test for the spine terms for day of the year. The holiday effect was assessed using conditional logistic regression. Seasonal plots suggest a significant, although modest, increase in organ availability during the summer months, except for region 1. The regions with the highest amplitude were region 7 (peak: June 21, amplitude: 16.63%) and region 6 (peak: July 5, amplitude: 11.29%). There was no significant difference in the odds of heart donation when comparing holidays vs. non‐holidays using national data (odds ratio [95% CI]: 1.01 [0.98, 1.03], P = 0.560) or any regional subsets. There was no observable correlation between donor heart availability and holidays. However, a significant seasonality effect was observed with higher donation rates occurring during warmer months.

The current and future role of artificial intelligence in optimizing donor organ utilization and recipient outcomes in heart transplantation

“…Additionally, patients who are stable on LVADs as bridge-to-transplant therapy, are increasingly unlikely to receive OHT (9). Finally, UNOS policy allows a 30-day window for patients with a durable LVAD to be elevated to Status 3, with the potential to strategically use a patients 30-day window to increase their chances of receiving an OHT (11).…”