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Consent for postmortem donation

Some repositories may ask medical centers to approve postmortem tissue collection protocols. A key issue in postmortem donation is to not further burden grieving families with requests for tissue. Sensitivity to grieving families requires that tissue collection protocols for postmortem donation consider the least intrusive methods. For instance, if families will be approached by a transplant bank nurse, consider including informed consent for research tissue in the discussion. If the research repository is commercial but the transplant bank is non-profit, full disclosure of this difference is important. While separate consent forms might clarify distinctions between therapeutic and research uses of tissue, it may also confuse surviving family members. Great care should be taken to make sure families are adequately informed about commercial tissue repositories. Postmortem tissue collection is addressed in the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act and by state laws that regulate postmortem gifts of tissue.