Q: How does Illinois work in terms of organ donation from cancer patients?
I know every state is different. For example, my brother passed with a primary brain tumor in the state of Florida. He was brain dead on life support and we thought we could donate his heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. as they were healthy with no signs of cancer. The only cancer was in his brain. However, the state of Florida doesn’t allow this. They did however, take bone, viens, corenas, tendons, etc.
Therefore, what is the law in Illinois for cancer patients?
A: While Illinois state law does not dictate under which mechanism of death a person can or cannot donate, patients with active cancer are ruled out for organ and tissue donation. Corneas can be recovered from patients with cancer, except for leukemia.
Organs, but not tissue, can be recovered from patients with primary brain tumors. On a more technical note, in the suggested case of a “primary brain tumor,” meaning no metastasis to other organs and it is not a high grade brain tumor – for example, Grade IV - the primary brain tumor needs to be identified by biopsy and the patient can not have a VP shunt in place. This being that the shunt can carry potential cancer cells to other parts of the body.
Both organs and tissue can be recovered from patients with a history of cancer, as long as they have been in remission for at least 5 years.
The best thing Illinoisans can do is register their decision to donate now, regardless of their current health conditions, and allow the medical professionals make the determination of eligibility at the appropriate time.
-Dave
|
Past Donor Expert Questions
Q: I do know Illinois at one time (not sure if they still do) would allow HIV patients to donate organs to another HIV patient. From what I heard, we are the only state that does allow this, which most people don’t know about.
A: Yes, Illinois does have a law that allows organs to be recovered from HIV+ patients to donate to other HIV+ recipients. However, Federal law still prohibits this practice and supersedes the state law by mandating that all potential HIV+ donors be screened out for donation.
The best thing Illinoisans can do is register their decision to donate now, regardless of their current health conditions, and allow the medical professionals make the determination of eligibility at the appropriate time.
I have a chronic medical condition; can I still register to be an organ/tissue donor?
Yes! For any death where organ donation is a possibility and consent is given, there will be a medical assessment of what organs can be recovered.
A handful of medical conditions will rule out organ donation, such as HIV-positive status, actively spreading cancer (except for primary brain tumors that have not spread beyond the brain stem), or certain severe, current infections. However, for most other diseases or chronic medical conditions, organ/tissue donation remains possible.
Unfortunately, many people never indicate their wish to donate because they believe, falsely, that their age or medical condition would not allow them to donate. If you want to save and enhance lives through donation, the most important action you can take is to register your decision on Illinois’ organ/tissue donor registry.
If donation is not medically feasible, that determination will be made at the time of death.
I have a thing with commitments; do I really need to register?
Absolutely! The decision to join the Illinois organ/tissue donor registry is an important one. As a registered donor, you can alleviate the burden on your family of wondering what you were thinking and of making that decision for you in a time of grief. And you will make it known that you intend to save lives through donation.
Remember: One person’s decision to donate can enhance and save the lives of more than 25 people.
As always, it is important to discuss your donation decision with your family.
Make a commitment you won’t regret, register today!
If an Illinois resident registers to be an organ donor in Illinois and then changes residency, when that person dies, are they still organ donors in Illinois? And where do their organs go, to a recipient in the state that person is registered?
Illinois residents, who are registered organ and tissue donors, will remain on the registry, unless the person requests that their name be removed. If an Illinois resident relocates to another state, that person should register their donation decision in the state in which they are residing. In the event that someone were to pass away in Illinois but actually has residency in another state, we would check with our counterparts in that state to determine whether the individual is a registered donor and act accordingly per their wishes. The protocol is the same in other states as it is in Illinois.
Organ allocation is based on the donor’s location at the time of death, essentially to provide donated organs to the sickest matching patients as close to the donor’s location as possible in order to minimize transportation time and transplant the organ as quickly as possible for the best possible medical outcome. The longer that an organ stays outside the body, the greater the chance it may not function as well upon transplantation. There are different windows of time for each type of organ in which it will optimally function after transplant. The heart and lungs, for example can be preserved for four to six hours, the pancreas and liver can be preserved for 12 to 24 hours, while the kidney can function as long as 72 hours from surgical recovery to transplant.
Tissue has a much larger window of time. Heart valves, skin, bone and saphenous veins can be preserved from three to ten years. If someone passes away and becomes a donor in Illinois, donated organs will be matched first with locally based transplant candidates if at all possible – if that is not possible, then the donation will be matched with patients in a larger geographic area.
To register to be an organ and tissue donor in Illinois, visit here to register online, call 800/210-2106, or visit any Illinois Secretary of State driver’s services facility. Non-Illinois residents should visit www.ShareYourLife.org to learn how to designate their donor decision.
Can I specify which organs I want to donate? I really don't want my body torn apart. I understand you are trying to help as many people as possible, but I would like some say-so into what is actually donated.
There's a short answer to your question, but I want to offer a bit more explanation. I'm concerned that your question is coming from an impression the body is "torn apart" or disfigured after donation. Actually, the complete opposite is true. Donation is actually a surgical procedure and the body is carefully restored afterward like after any surgery, so that you can't even tell that a surgery or donation took place.
While you may have in mind certain organs/tissues you want to donate, it's impossible to know whether you will be medically eligible to donate them until the time of your death, when we can do a medical evaluation based on your condition at that time. Sometimes it is only one organ or one type of tissue that can be donated. Most people who become organ donors are able to donate two or three organs, not all of them.
In terms of tissue donation, again, only certain tissues are donated and again the body restored after the procedure. As little of the body is removed based on what you are able to donate. For example, many people ask about cornea and skin donation assuming that the entire eye or most of their skin will be removed. The actuality is that the cornea is like the contact lens to the eye, the dime-size clear part on the top of the eye. Donating it does not require that the entire eye be removed.
Likewise, skin donation entails recovery of the very top, thin layer of skin tissue from sections of the back and the thigh. Afterward, it simply looks like the area was sunburned. We really work to educate people about this, and of course, they save the lives of critically burned patients who receive skin grafts, and give cornea transplant patients the ability to see again.
Whatever the case at the time of death, when we have determined medical eligibility for donation, we discuss and confirm with family members which organs and tissues you will be able to donate. It does not impact the ability to have an open-casket viewing; again, people would not be able to tell the deceased was an organ/tissue donor unless they were told.
So please forgive the long background, but I really want to make sure you have this information and understand how it works. The bottom line is that Illinois' registry enables you to donate all organs and tissue you are medically eligible to donate at the time of your death, but it does not enable you to designate certain organs or tissues only. So in the end, if you feel strongly about not donating a specific organs and tissues for whatever reason, you should not join the registry and must inform your legal next-of-kin and rely on that individual to provide consent for donation per your explicit wishes at the time of your death.
I have breast cancer and am assuming I can no longer be a donor. Is that correct?
To answer your question, a donation will depend on the stage of the cancer at the time of death. When an individual passes away, generally a history of an active cancer within the last five years will preclude organ and most tissue donations. However, cornea donation may still be possible, and organ and other tissue donations may still be possible in the instance of certain brain cancers that have not metastasized.
For this reason, and because criteria differ for different types of organs and tissues, we always encourage people to register as a donor if that is their wish regardless of current medical condition--since that may or may not be their condition at the time of death. Our coordinators conduct a full medical evaluation at that time to determine the individual's medical eligibility to donate.
Hi, I'm from Poland but I live in Chicago. I don't have state ID, can I be a donor??
You do need a state ID or driver's license number to register in the Illinois donor registry -- it is necessary to uniquely identify you in the registry. If you don't have a number to register, it's important to inform your family members of your wishes so that they can give consent for you to become a donor at the time of your death.
