$1.04 million; 2008-2011
Funded by Health Resources and Services Administration, Grant #R38 OT10587
Investigators (left to right): John Kellum, MD (PI); Ali Al-Khafaji, MD, MPH (Co-PI); Raghavan Murugan, MD, MPH and Abdus Wahed, PhD (Co-Is) 

“This study is ground breaking in the fields of organ donation and transplantation. If we are successful, our study will have a significant impact on saving the lives of patients with end stage organ dysfunction who otherwise die while waiting on an ever growing transplant list.”

-Ali Al-Khafaji, MD, MPH.
Assistant Professor, Department of Critical Care Medicine
Co-Principal Investigator, MOnIToR.

There is a national crisis related to the severe organ shortage. Despite efforts aimed to increase the number of organs available for transplant, such as living related or unrelated donation and donation after cardiac death, the main source of organs remains donation after brain death.

The investigators will conduct a large multicenter randomized controlled trial involving 960 organ donors from 9 organ procurement organizations throughout the US. Hemodynamic instability of organ donors is one reason for the limited number of organs procured per donor. While hemodynamic instability is caused by several factors, carefully titrated fluid resuscitation can improve tissue profusion and avoid organ edema. The investigators have hypothesized that if they optimize hemodynamics in brain death organ donors using pulse-pressure variation (PPV; a parameter that effectively predicts fluid responsiveness), they can increase the number of organs recovered and subsequently transplanted.

For more information, contact: Michele Elder, RN; Project Manager (email address)

Useful web links for more info
UNOS: www.unos.org
OPTN: www.optn.org
HRSA: www.hrsa.gov