Published articles being retracted from scientific journals including Transplantation

There is now confirmation that 15 scientific articles have been retracted from journals from around the world due to concerns that organs from executed prisoners were used for the purposes of transplantation. These articles are all from China.

As outlined in this online post from Retraction Watch the majority of the studies were published in PLOS One and the Transplantation journal.

This has been confirmed in an open access Editorial published in Transplantation where it is confirmed that some of the relevant scientific publications will now be retracted. It is understood that  a decision has been made at PLOS One to also retract a number of publications following a review having been undertaken. This intention of PLOS One to review previously published articles, was signalled earlier in 2019 Statement PLOS One In addition the scientific journal Kidney International has published online an expression of concern over 2 manuscripts that were previously published.

For all healthcare professionals involved in organ donation and or solid organ transplantation this is an important development as all possible measures are brought to bear on countries around the world where there are issues with how organs from organ donors are actually obtained.

Update : What is involved in the end to end process of assessing a potential deceased organ donor?

Following on from an earlier post in this blog on this particular topic, the time has come to provide an update as to what is involved in the end to end processes around the world  of undertaking a full medical/surgical assessment of a potential organ donor. This process extends from the initial identification of a potential organ donor in hospital through to the surgical recovery of the organs that are then deemed suitable for transplantation. In particular this information applies to deceased donors whether it be that they proceed via the donation after circulatory death (DCD) pathway or whether it be following the neurologic determination of death (otherwise known as brain death - DBD).

A number of professional organizations and statutory organ donation organizations also have relevant up to date information which can be accessed via the relevant web sites. This includes NHS Organ Donor , the United Network of Organ Donation in the United States ( UNOS ), and the Australian Organ and Tissue Authority via it's DonateLife website

However the best practice principles of assessing each and every organ donor are the same regardless of either the location or the circumstances. This involves putting together the relevant data and information for every point of interest as summarized in each of the pieces of the jigsaw in the following graphic-

One particular point of note and that is that along the way, from the beginning of the assessment process through to the end of the organ retrieval/recovery surgery being performed on an actual donor, as new information comes to hand this may rule out some or all of the organs for transplantation purposes. For example testing for infectious disease involves a battery of tests being performed the results of which are not available for a number of hours. As each year goes by the tests either become more sophisticated for eg the nucleic acid testing (NAT) for viruses. In addition as new blood tests are developed these are added to the battery of tests being undertaken, depending on the circumstances.

At times additional tests such as echo cardiograms, ultrasound scans and even computerized tomographic imaging may be performed if there are concerns that the donor may have additional medical problems which may need to be investigated further. On occasion more sophisticated tests are also performed on tissue obtained from undertaking a biopsy of one or more of the donor organs. These biopsies may also be undertaken during the organ retrieval/recovery surgery if the surgeons are concerned that there are specific abnormalities which need to be investigated further.

Acknowledgements: Lesley Logan NHS Scotland for providing feedback on this updated graphic prior to this blog post going live.

Everest - What it takes to climb to the summit - it is the end result of determination and planning (& some luck)

How hard is it to reach the summit of Mount Everest? As you can see and hear in the above link to this video footage, it is very hard. This condensed, YouTube footage consists of climbers who are initially on the approach to and then subsequently reach the summit of Mount Everest. It was put together by adventurer Elia Saikaly who recently made it available online.

For more on Elia you can check out the information that is available at the end of the video.

Many people climb Everest as a way of raising attention to and/or advocating on other human interest type issues that are of a significant interest to them. On occasion organ donation has been flagged as being an issue of particular importance to an Everest climber. This was the case in 2017, when a physiotherapist from HongKong successfully summitted the mountain. As outlined in this following online post (via the link), Elton Ng Chun-ting mentions how difficult it was to actually undertake the climb and how he also developed some temporary visual disturbance whilst on the mountain. The article also contains a video which is worth watching.

What both of these posts reveal is that is takes determination, along with physical conditioning and experience in high altitude mountain climbing to reach the summit of Everest. In addition a reasonable amount of forward planning and sound decision making are both required to achieve such a goal. The element of chance (or luck) is always a factor with this type of activity, as sudden illness of any of the team members, an unforeseen equipment failure or adverse weather conditions can either alone or in combination rule out reaching the end goal of a summit attempt.

Public disagreement via social media over the first lung transplant in Romania

Even if the information in the following online post about the first ever lung transplant having been performed in Romania is only half correct, it is still of concern First-lung-transplant-Romania

It appears that an argument has been waged via social media by officials over whether or not the Sfanta Maria hospital in Bucharest had received the appropriate authorisation.

Regardless of who may or may not be correct here, this is no way to deal with this, for multiple reasons, not least maintaining public confidence in the hospital system. Hopefully the issues that are alluded to in the article will be addressed and most importantly the war of words via social media will cease.

Meanwhile it does seem that the first transplant in Romania has actually been performed. Of note up until recently lung transplants for Romanian citizens were performed in Vienna, Austria (as mentioned in the article).

For information on the actual lung transplant procedure as it was reported in Romania, click on the following link -Lung transplant at Sfanta Maria hospital

Cessation of content curation via the Scoop.it platform

As alluded to in a previous post, one of my advocacy roles in the online space had involved content curation via the Scoop.it platform - www.scoop.it mainly pertaining to the topics of organ donation and organ transplantation.

However nothing in the online space remains static from year to year (think Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica story in 2018). Hence it can be expected that the developers and/or business owners of the various social media platforms will introduce changes on a regular basis. In addition individual users of social media platforms have to balance the rewards of using any particular online platform versus the risks and costs.

Hence from April 2018 how I go about my various advocacy roles in the online space will evolve.

The following changes will now occur-

A) Cessation of use of the Scoop.it platform predominantly due to the increasing charges being levelled by the owners for the same degree of functionality. This no doubt partly reflects the success of pitching this particular tool to users in the online space who are heavy users of content curation for specific purposes.

This means there will be no more new posts onto either of the following two sites-

            1) Organ Donation Transplant Matters www.scoop.it/t/organ-donation-transplant-matters

            2) Organ Donation Transplant Matters Resources www.scoop.it/t/organ-donation-transplant-matters-resources

B) Greater emphasis on the use of the second Twitter Handle @ODT_M https://twitter.com/ODT_M for pushing out content specifically on organ donation and transplantation

C) Ongoing use of Google+ and Linked In for advocacy purposes

D) An ongoing search for another content curation tool which is fit for purpose for this blogger

Enabling healthcare transformation and the power of data

Insights Gained from the Implementation of a Content Curation Strategy

Towards the end of 2011 the then new Scoop.it  content curation platform became available online. This precipitated the formulation of a strategy for content curation from the world wide web in close to real time for a niche area within healthcare. The strategy implementation would need to be iterative and undertaken in a stepwise manner in order to meet sustainability goals.

The first topic chosen for a domain on the Scoop.it platform was solid organ donation and transplantation. The focus would predominantly be on curating relevant news, patient stories and other related social media advocacy that would all be of interest to a general audience. The web sub site was named Organ Donation Transplant Matters (ODTM) and a logo generated. For the first 3 months highly selective filters were placed on the RSS feeds via the back end of the Scoop.it platform in order to not overwhelm the resources allocated towards curation activities. When it became apparent after the first month that only 1% of the visible RSS feeds were being posted, the filters were then significantly loosened such that as many information sources as possible could then be tapped into.

Consideration was subsequently given to establishing a second related domain on the Scoop.it platform and this was implemented 4 months after the first. The second sub site would have more of a professional focus and  hence would contain curated reports, guidelines and professional opinion on organ donation and transplantation. This second sub site was named Organ Donation Transplant Matters Resources (ODTMR). Only good quality material would be selected for posting which meant that more highly selective filters were able to be placed right from the start on the RSS feeds for the ODTMR sub site.

So after three years what are the lessons learned? Metrics available via the back end of the Scoop.it platform now provide data on the most reliable sources for posts. In addition the Scoop.it platform has been progressively re-engineered such that there is now far more interaction between the curator and the platform. The low rate of postings onto the ODTM sub site means that the filters for these particular RSS feeds will now be significantly altered (and tightened). 

Whereas for the ODTMR sub site, the RSS feed filters can and will be progressively altered in an ongoing iterative manner to include some of the suggestions which are now beginning to be made available from the Scoop.it end. In addition feedback can be provided to Scoop.it on which types of links are not useful.

This ongoing steady optimization of the RSS feeds for curation purposes, contributes to efficiency and efficacy goals both continuing to be met. With the ongoing increase in online activity year upon year it is apparent that effective content curation requires the use of an online tool that is also changing in parallel to meet the increasing demands of dealing with the burgeoning flow of online information.  

This is part of the humarithm philosophy (the interaction between humans and technology), underpinning the ongoing evolution of the Scoop.it platform from which this curator is one of the many continuing to benefit.