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Lewis Teperman, MD; Luis Podesta, MD; Luis Mieles, MD; Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD
University Health Center of Pittsburgh (Pa)

JAMA. 1989;262(20):2837.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor. —

The supply of livers for transplantation has been limited by an arbitrary 45- or 50-year upper age ceiling for donor candidacy,¹ a ceiling that Darby et al² suggest may be too restrictive. To see if donor age affects results, we analyzed the fate of 75 adult livers transplanted in December 1988 and January 1989.

Study.—

Conditions of brain death and acceptability of liver function tests were met by the usual standards of our procurement program.³ Ten donors were 51 to 54 years old and the others had an average age of 26.9 years (Table). Donors beyond age 54 years were not arbitrarily excluded because of age. However, during the 2-month study, 15 other offers of livers from donors older than 50 years were refused; our person on call declined 10 of these for nonspecific "judgment" reasons that probably reflected the age factor. The . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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