An international multicenter study of protocols for liver transplantation during a pandemic: A case for quadripartite equipoise.

ABSTRACT:

Background & aims

The outbreak of COVID-19 has vastly increased the operational burden on healthcare systems worldwide. For patients with end-stage liver failure, liver transplantation is the only option. However, the strain on intensive care facilities caused by the pandemic is a major concern. There is an urgent need for ethical frameworks to balance the need for liver transplantation against the availability of national resources.

Methods

We performed an international multicenter study of transplant centers to understand the evolution of policies for transplant prioritization in response to the pandemic in March 2020. To describe the ethical tension arising in this setting, we propose a novel ethical framework, the quadripartite equipoise (QE) score, that is applicable to

SUBMITTER: Chew CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7245234 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature