Dying Girl Needing Lung Forces Change in U.S. Policy
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U.S. lung-transplant rules are being temporarily eased to provide a case-by-case avenue for sick children to receive an adult donor organ, a shift in policy that followed pleas from the family of a dying Pennsylvania girl.
The executive committee of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network voted at an emergency meeting yesterday to create an interim classification for child lung candidates with exceptional cases. The rule will be effective until July 1, 2014, giving time to find a permanent solution to a policy that barred children under 12 years old from receiving adult lungs until all adults in need had a chance to accept them.