Personalized Medicine for Whom - both the Dead and the Living? Diagnostics for Brain Death in the Context of Organ Transplantation

摘要

There remains a worldwide need for organ transplantation donors. Interestingly, the concept of personalized medicine and diagnostic testing has thus far been narrowly applied to individuals who are currently alive and suffering from common complex diseases such as cancers and diabetes. But in a context of organ transplantation, it becomes immediately pressing to develop diagnostics for individuals who are brain dead ~ for they are often candidates as organ transplantation donors. Personalized medicine literature has vastly neglected this facet of diagnostics as applied to brain death. This seems even more relevant considering that a recent CPPM editorial by Holmes has highlighted the need to broaden the extant conceptual and application frames on personalized medicine [1]. Here, I wish to argue that such a broadening should also entail considerations for diagnostics to ascertain brain death and that such diagnostics will involve not only technology-driven tests but also clinical diagnostics and criteria.