AUTHOR=Booker Sarah E. , Howell Jesse , Dolan Thomas G. , Poff Kelley , Laurie Krissy , Cherikh Wida S. , Klassen David K. , Wainright Jennifer L. TITLE=Impact of removing OPTN region from vascularized composite allograft allocation JOURNAL=Frontiers in Transplantation VOLUME=3 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/transplantation/articles/10.3389/frtra.2024.1399357 DOI=10.3389/frtra.2024.1399357 ISSN=2813-2440 ABSTRACT=
On 6/18/2020, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) implemented new policy replacing OPTN region with a 500 nautical mile (NM) circle around the donor hospital for the purpose of vascularized composite allograft (VCA) allocation. We used OPTN data to assess deceased donor VCA transplants in the 3 years pre- (6/19/2017–6/17/2020) vs. post-implementation (6/18/2020–6/17/2023). A total of 19 deceased donor VCA transplants were performed pre-policy (10 uterus, 3 bilateral upper limb, 1 unilateral upper limb, 3 face, 1 abdominal wall and 1 penis), and 11 post-policy (4 uterus, 1 bilateral upper limb, 2 face, 1 trachea, 2 abdominal wall, and 1 bilateral upper limb and face). Median distance from donor hospital to transplant hospital increased from 70 NM (range: 0–524 NM) pre-policy to 119 NM (range: 0–464 NM) post-policy. The majority of transplants in both policy eras were within 500 NM of the donor hospital [89.5% (