Management of Patients Who Receive an Organ Transplant Abroad and Return Home for Follow-up Care: Recommendations From the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group
- 1 January 2018
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Transplantation
- Vol. 102 (1), e2-e9
- https://doi.org/10.1097/TP.0000000000001963
Abstract
Eradicating transplant tourism depends on complex solutions that include efforts to progress towards self-sufficiency in transplantation. Meanwhile, professionals and authorities are faced with medical, legal, and ethical problems raised by patients who return home after receiving an organ transplant abroad, particularly when the organ has been obtained through illegitimate means. In 2016, the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group convened an international, multidisciplinary workshop in Madrid, Spain, to address these challenges and provide recommendations for the management of these patients, which are presented in this paper. The core recommendations are grounded in the belief that principles of transparency, traceability, and continuity of care applied to patients who receive an organ domestically should also apply to patients who receive an organ abroad. Governments and professionals are urged to ensure that, upon return, patients are promptly referred to a transplant center for evaluation and care, not cover the costs of transplants resulting from organ or human trafficking, register standardized information at official registries on patients who travel for transplantation, promote international exchange of data for traceability, and develop a framework for the notification of identified or suspected cases of transnational transplant-related crimes by health professionals to law enforcement agencies.Keywords
This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Transplant Medicine in China: Need for Transparency and International Scrutiny RemainsAmerican Journal of Transplantation, 2016
- On Patients Who Purchase Organ Transplants AbroadAmerican Journal of Transplantation, 2016
- Historical development and current status of organ procurement from death-row prisoners in ChinaBMC Medical Ethics, 2015
- The Invisible Issue of Organ LaunderingTransplantation, 2014
- A needed Convention against trafficking in human organsThe Lancet, 2014
- Open Letter to Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of ChinaTransplantation, 2014
- A call for government accountability to achieve national self-sufficiency in organ donation and transplantationThe Lancet, 2011
- The Madrid Resolution on Organ Donation and TransplantationTransplantation, 2011
- Organ trafficking and transplant tourism and commercialism: the Declaration of IstanbulThe Lancet, 2008
- The state of the international organ trade: a provisional picture based on integration of available informationPublished by WHO Press ,2007