The activity of organ removals and transplants increased by 4% in 2022 in France, with 5,494 transplants performed, according to figures announced on Tuesday February 7 by the Biomedicine Agency (ABM). However, these figures do not return to the level before the health crisis, in 2018 and 2019. The increase also remains lower than in 2021 (+19.3%). Transplantation has taken a heavy toll on the pandemic, causing more than 48,000 years of life lost worldwide, according to a study conducted in twenty-two countries, published in August 2021 in The Lancet Public Health.
However, this figure is qualified by the ABM “encouraging, given the difficult situation experienced by some health establishments”. Faced at the end of 2022 with a triple epidemic of Covid-19, bronchiolitis and influenza, the hospital system also suffers from a disaffection of caregivers, as many tensions which weigh on the activity of organ removals.
“However, the Agency remains cautious, all the efforts made by health professionals, patient associations, hospital administrations, health authorities and learned societies will not make it possible to achieve the objectives set by the transplant plan and related to the patient expectations, if the hospital situation does not improve”warns Professor François Kerbaul, director of organ and tissue harvesting and transplantation at the ABM.
“Talk about it before death”
The fourth transplant plan (2022-2026) is qualified as ambitious by all the actors. “We are mobilizing health establishments to increase liver and kidney transplants and removals, in particular living donations”, adds François Kerbaul. It is known that the shorter the time interval between the two interventions, the better the result. Similarly, transplantation remains the best treatment for patients with renal insufficiency, without equivalent even when there is a replacement treatment, such as dialysis.
In addition, the number of deceased donors removed from tissues (cornea, arteries, skin, bones, etc.) also increased by 5.5% to 6,226. On the other hand, the opposition rate remains high, at 33% in 2022, compared to 30% in 2019, with strong regional disparities. Despite communication campaigns, only 54% of French people feel concerned about organ donation, according to a barometer conducted each year by the ABM (a survey conducted by the Viavoice institute among 1,012 people in January). “The key word to fight against opposition to donation is to talk about it between relatives, before death”, says François Kerbaul. The law says that we are all presumed donors of organs and tissues, unless we have expressed our refusal during our lifetime, by being registered in the national register of refusals or by having informed relatives. François Kerbaul recalls that 10,810 patients are on the active waiting list, ie they are immediately eligible for a transplant.