Sérgio dos Santos Leria, one of the honored at the celebration of the 50 years of liver transplant, in August 2018, at the FMUSP theater, passed away at the last fourth of December. He had complications after a re-transplant carried out in November.
Activist of the transplant cause by the NGO Transpática, acting in the journal “Portal do Ó” and a highlight of the “Guinnes Book” for being the patient with the longest rate of survival after a transplant in the world, Sérgio was “deeply involved in the cause of transplant and helped many transplant patients and their families; he was a vary humanized person”, as defined by Prof. Dr. Flavio Henrique Ferreira Galvão, of the Discipline of Transplanted Organs from the Digestive Tract, of the Gastroenterology Department, from the Clínicas Hospital of HCFMSUP.
Dr. Galvão has closely accompanied Sérgio for seven years and ended up becoming his personal friend. “I was a best man at his wedding and I became a sponsor of the NGO he created to give support to transplant patients. The transplant is a situation in which anyone can be submitted. Therefore, we need more campaigns on this theme and Sérgio was very active in this cause. Many people don’t become donors by lack of enlightenment”, states Prof. Galvão.
Sérgio was submitted to his first transplant in December of 1985, when he was 12 years old, by atresia in the bile duct, and counted on the expertise of the pioneer team in the area, led by Prof. Dr. Silvano Raia. Due to sever rejection, Sérgio needed to go through another transplant in May of 1986. Health problems since 2009 led to new transplant, in November 2018. This last surgery, of great technical difficulty, took 15 hours. Sérgio didn’t resist, even by presenting a good initial evolution, according to the medical report released by the HCFMUSP.
A former employee of the Medical School Foundation (FFM) since 1998, Sérgio leaves a son and a wife. “We can’t let the opportunity of speaking about transplant in Brazil pass us by. The country has the largest public program of organ, tissue and cellular transplant in the world. Even so, there is a deficit of 30% in the index of organ donation and a lot of people die in the wait list”, compares Prof. Galvão.
Brazil has the National System of Transplant (SNT), state transplant poles and hospital centers of organ capitation, besides a working legislation, according to Prof. Galvão. But none of that helps in the improvement of the donation index. According to the professor, among the main reasons is the flaw in the process of organ capitation and deficiency in the ICU beds which results in organ deterioration, besides the difficulties in the notification of encephalic death. The encephalic death is of compulsory notification and must be diagnosed by a doctor with a specific technical capacitation to diagnose and notify the event.
However, the biggest barrier is the cultural one, as admitted by Prof. Galvão, since many people aren’t sufficiently aware of the process involving the donation and the meaning of encephalic death. “People are yet insecure on the reputation of the organ donation program and that still has a negative impact. It’s a shame, for one donator may be able to save up to seven lives from one organ donation”, explains Prof. Flavio Galvão.
