Anat Biol Anthropol.  2021 Jun;34(2):31-37. 10.11637/aba.2021.34.2.31.

Demographic Characteristics of Body Donation Program Database at Jeju National University Medical School

• Kang WS
• Kim J
• Yoon SP

• KMID: 2518358
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.11637/aba.2021.34.2.31

Abstract

Dissections for medical education have been performed with one donated and died unclaimed. Recently, ‘The Revised Act of Corpse Dissection and Preservation’ prohibited the use of the unclaimed dead bodies for the dissection. Trends in body donation have been rarely analyzed in spite of the changed bioethical and legal environment. We aimed to compare the demographic characteristics such as age, sex, the place and causes of death, and others on 594 registrants and 140 cadaver donors at Jeju National University Medical School database from 1996 to 2020. There was a ratio of 60.4% male to 39.6% female in registrants, and 72.9% male to 27.1% female in donors. The age was sixties 34.3%, fifties 26.1%, and seventies 19.7% in registrants, and seventies 22.9%, fifties 17.1%, sixties 17.1%, and eighties 16.4% in donors. The proportion of the registrants who donated their bodies was 8.9% until now, and the registrants was 37.1% among the cadaver donors. The cause of death of donors were the neoplasms with 38.6%, the diseases of the respiratory system with 11.4%, the diseases of the digestive diseases and injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes with 9.3%, respectively. The place of death of donors was the highest in hospital (68.6%). These results could be practiced as important basic data base for the body donation program. We think that the national facilities or management system might be necessary in order to maintain the donation of the human bodies required for medical education and research.

Keyword

Cadaver; Registrant; Donor; Cause of Death; Jeju