Florence: over a hundred years old donates organs, it is the first time in the world, the recipient is fine

For the first time in the world, an organ was donated by a person over a hundred years old for transplant purposes.

The sample, which has no documented precedent in the scientific literature, was carried out at the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital in Florence last week on

: her liver, with the green light of the operational coordination of the regional transplant center of Tuscany and the national transplant center, was judged suitable and successfully transplanted into a person on the waiting list at the University hospital of Pisa.

Previously, the oldest organ donor ever registered in Italy was a woman who died in Fabriano at 97 years and 7 months at the end of last October, a case that had flanked another four withdrawals from 97-year-old people made in 2003, 2008, 2018 and in 2019. 

"At the international level, there are no solid organ donations from people who have died beyond the century of life - confirms the director of the National Transplant Center, Massimo Cardillo -, but only some rare tissue samples, such as corneas.

. which, however, testifies once again, a few days after taking Fabriano, the technical and organizational capacity of the Italian transplant network to make the most of all donations, even those of very old people, in order to give effective answers to the transplant waiting for more than 8 thousand patients in our country ". 

"Within 24 hours - explain Daniele Cultrera, hospital coordinator of San Giovanni di Dio of the Tuscan transplant organization and Alessandro Pacini, head of organ donations and transplanted hospital network Ausl Toscana centro - the San Giovanni di Dio hospital was home to two absolutely exceptional organ donation events: in addition to the liver removal from the over 100-year-old patient, we also had our first controlled multi-organ donation with a still heart.

, as well as with so much professionalism and dedication by the many professionals involved that such brilliant results can be achieved: many, although not on shift, were present for many hours, in particular the nurses and resuscitation doctors ".  

"This transplant - says Professor Paolo De Simone, director of the Operative Unit of Hepatic Surgery and Liver Transplants of the University Hospital of Pisa - was carried out after having implemented all the procedures required to ensure maximum safety of the recipient, in all stages of the care process, pre and post transplant, ensured by all our structures involved. After careful evaluation of the clinical characteristics of the donor, we proceeded to histological verification of the quality of the organ, also using ex situ hypothermic perfusion to protect the liver from any post-transplant complications

.

The procedure represents the culmination of years of multidisciplinary clinical work and study on the use of elderly donors, on which the Pisa Transplant Center and the Tuscany Region have invested resources and planning ". 

An investment also confirmed by Adriano Peris, coordinator of the Regional Transplant Center of Tuscany: "The result obtained with the successful outcome of the liver transplant from a centenary donor is the

, through regional transplant programs, is the result of such a complicated process. This has also led citizens to trust in a system capable of transforming the will to donate into a concrete act ". 

In 2021 there were 188 organ donors over the age of 80, 13.6% of the total, plus 461 deceased donors between the ages of 65 and 79: overall,

, while the average age of the donors used was 60.4 years.

On the other hand, older people remain more distrustful in declaring their consent to organ donation alive, misled by the mistaken belief that they cannot donate for personal reasons: in 2021 the average opposition rate in the declarations issued for the renewal of the identity card was 31.1%, a percentage that however rises to 45.5% among the 70-80 year olds and even 61.7% among the over 80s.