Was Sarah Murnaghan Treated Justly?

Abstract

Lung transplantation is a potentially life-saving procedure for patients with irreversible lung failure. Five-year survival rates after lung transplantation are >50% for children and young adults. But there are not enough lungs to save everyone who could benefit. In 2005, the United Network for Organ Sharing developed a scoring system to prioritize patients for transplantation. That system considered transplant urgency as well as time on the waiting list and the likelihood that the patient would benefit from the transplant. At the time, there were so few pediatric lung transplants that the data that were used to develop the Lung Allocation Score were inadequate to analyze and prioritize children, so they were left out of the Lung Allocation Score system. In 2013, the family of a 10-year-old challenged this system, claiming that it was unjust to children. In the article, we asked experts in health policy, bioethics, and transplantation to discuss the issues in the Murnaghan case.