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СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASANumber of transplants dropped substantially during pandemic due to lack of ICU places and have failed to recover
The number of heart and lung transplants being carried out in Ireland remains at half the level recorded before the Covid-19 pandemic, a new study has found.
The research noted transplant activity had slowed dramatically during the pandemic as intensive care resources were reallocated to treat Covid patients, and suggested this had resulted in significant “waiting list mortality”.
It found that while the total number of cardiothoracic cases (surgeries most commonly involving the heart and lungs) had recovered well since the pandemic, transplant surgery rates continued to be well down.
Between five and 10 heart transplants now take place every year, compared with 15 in 2019, while lung transplants have similarly decreased to between 13 and 19 per year compared with 37 before the pandemic.
The study was carried out by a team of doctors at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital – Ireland’s national cardiothoracic transplant centre – and published on Tuesday by the Irish Journal of Medical Science.
“This five-year follow-up reveals partial recovery in cardiothoracic surgery with total volumes nearing pre-pandemic levels by 2024 but aortic and in particular transplant procedures lag behind,” the authors wrote.
Cardiothoracic cases more generally had dropped to 49 per cent of 2019 levels during the peak of the pandemic in 2021, falling to 251 cases from 510 before recovering to 494 by 2025.
General procedures such as coronary artery bypass grafting and valve surgery also rebounded strongly to exceed pre-pandemic figures by 2024 and 2025.
A reduction in “programme momentum” since the pandemic was a factor in the failure to recover to pre-pandemic levels of transplant activity, according to the authors. They said there were also “structural vulnerabilities” in the Irish system.
The authors recommend a series of targeted interventions to address the issue, including the establishment of dedicated intensive care units for transplants, increasing donation rates, and the use of advanced organ perfusion technologies.
The study noted Ireland’s donor pool had been uniquely constrained even prior to the pandemic, ranking 28th globally with 18 donors per million population – the number of donors who died in a given year and whose organs were subsequently used in transplants – with no additional capacity outside of the national transplant centre.
There is a mortality rate of 24 per cent every six months for patients on the waiting list for a heart transplant, while lung-transplant candidates face an estimated survival time of two years without a donor.
While the authors outlined a number of recommendations to improve transplant activity, they said the opt-out donor system introduced last year had the potential to boost donations by 25 per cent.