Successful kidney transplants have been shown to improve quality of life for the recipients and dramatically reduce the cost of caring for patients with end stage renal failure. However, there is still a significant shortfall in the number of donor organs available, particularly in the UK. This is in part being addressed by an increase in donation after circulatory death (DCD), where organs are recovered from patients whose death is determined according to cardiorespiratory criteria after planned withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments within a critical care setting. For this podcast, Mr Dominic Summers, a transplant surgeon from the Cambridge, talks about the process and challenges of DCD, as well as the opportunities to improve donation rates highlighted by the accompanying paper looking at regional variations for renal DCD within the UK.

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