JAPAN: Organ Transplant is Legal, Needs Donor Card, Written Consent

TOKYO (The Japan Times), February 14, 2006: LIFELINES Columnist Angella Jeffs of THE JAPAN TIMES today discusses the subject of Organ Donation and Transplants in Japan. In response to the question about donor cards, a reader Masao O. writes: "Although I'm not a transplant surgeon, my understanding of the Japanese Organ Transplant Law is that both an official Japanese organ donor card and the consent of your relatives are absolute requirements for the diagnosis of brain death and for organ transplantation from a brain-dead person in Japan." He continues: "No other forms of documentation or consent, such as foreign donor cards, driver's license stickers, and notarized letters stating your willingness to donate your organs, regardless if the hospital staff recognize them for what they are, have any legal standing in Japan. "They would only serve to alert the hospital staff that you might have an official Japanese donor card and to keep on looking in your wallet." Organ transplants JP says he didn't realize organ transplants were legal in Japan. "I seem to be always reading about kids and adults going abroad for transplants. What is the situation?" Katsuyuki Miyasaka, MD, Director of the Department of Anesthesia and ICU at the National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo has some useful information on this topic also. He says the donation of organs, after brain death has been declared, is approved in Japan only when a possible donor has left a written will (donor card) indicating his/her wish to donate organs if he/she is diagnosed with brain death and close relatives do not oppose the will (meaning that the relative can reverse the will). "Medically, there are established brain death criteria (Takeuchi criteria) in Japan, but only people above age 15 can be donor candidates due to Civil Law requirements. "Until now, only 29 cardiac transplantations from brain death donors have been performed since such transplantations became legal in 1997. "Many more cadaveric kidney transplantations and living related liver transplantations have been done." He adds that The Japan Organ Transplant Network has donor cards in English (there are two Web sites with information: www.jotnw.or.jp and www.medi-net.or.jp/tcnet/index_e.html Regarding the current status of cadaveric transplantation in Japan, there a working system where organs are collected and transferred to facilities where individuals are waiting for such organs. JOTNW is handling this. Finally, a sincere apology to my original contact, Dr John Takeyama, of NCCHD. In Lifelines of Jan. 31, he appeared with the surname of his colleague (Miyasaki), rather than his own. Angela Jeffs adds: Send queries, questions, problems and posers to lifelines@japantimes.co.jp Copyright: The Japan Times