A successful strategy for achieving minimal cold ischemia time for Donation after Circulatory Death in Belfast City Hospital

Belfast is the sole renal transplant centre in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million) and the local Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics laboratory supports approximately 120 transplants annually. Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) donor organs have been used in this centre since 2013. Such transplants have outcomes comparable to donation after brainstem death donor transplants provided the Cold Ischaemic Time (CIT) is minimised. United Kingdom guidelines suggest the CIT should be <12 hours. In this brief communication the strategy employed to achieve low CIT and the outcomes for the year 2015-16 are discussed.