*Purpose: Recent changes in allocation and the ongoing organ donor shortage have led to increased regional and national sharing, putting intense pressure on the organ transportation supply chain. We have demonstrated that innovated organ transportation using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) combined with active organ monitoring can be safely implemented into clinical care. UAS may be able to reduce cold ischemia time (CIT), improve team safety, and reduce cost. As UAS are not presently used for payload delivery and hasty adoption of organ UAS could harm trust in the transplant system, we sought to determine if UAS implementation would affect surgical decision making.

*Methods: An IRB approved 5-point Likert scale web based survey, validated by 5 experts in the transplant surgery field, was undertaken. Kidney transplant surgeons (n=174) in the United States who were also ASTS members were sampled.

*Results: Responses from 55 transplant surgeons were collected. The mean age was 48.09 (SD 8.67, range 34-64) years, and 80% (44) identified as male. 76.4% (n=42) of surgeons felt CIT reduction to 8 hours from the current 18 hours (mean) would increase organ acceptance rates. The majority of surgeons were more likely to accept a high KDPI kidney with < 8 hours (76.4%). Only 23.6% of respondents believed that civilian drones are a scary concept, and 34.5% stated that civilian drones make them nervous. 92.7% of participants believe that drone have the potential to help people. 90.9% of respondents agreed the mode of transportation was irrelevant to their decision to accept an organ but that speed and quality were most important. Only 16.4% of surgeons believe that the current transport communication system is adequate for the organ transportation system.

*Conclusions: This novel study demonstrates the potential for UAS to have a positive human impact by optimizing organ transportation. Surgeons felt CIT reduction was important. A quarter of surgeons were skeptical of UAS use, highlighting the need for education and further study ahead of adoption. However, surgeons were primarily interested in quality and time, irrespective of how the organ was moved. >80% of surgeons feel the current system of organ communication is adequate to meet the needs of transplantation. To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating the human impact of drone use in organ transportation.

« Back to 2020 American Transplant Congress