A revolutionary device has been designed to allow transplant surgeons to revive hearts from donors who have recently died. Traditionally, the heart can only be used for transplant if it is surgically removed from the body immediately after the organ donor becomes brain-dead. Such method requires cool storage because the lack of oxygen causes an immediate deterioration in the physical condition of the heart. Lowered temperature delays this damage.
With the use of the Organ Care System by Transmedics, however, the heart will no longer need cool storage transportation to be re-usable for organ transplant. It will, in fact, be revived instead: the heart will be kept warm and helped to keep functioning.
The device is a type of sterile box with wheels, which allows the heart to be preserved in a temperature that is almost similar to the human body. Similar to human conditions, too, the box has an oxygen supply and tubes that can be attached onto the heart to supply blood and the essential nutrients.
At St. Vincent's Hospital in New South Wales earlier this year, surgeons removed a donor's heart two minutes after it ceased beating. The heart was attached to the Organ Care System within 20 minutes and supplied with oxygen, blood and electrolytes. The heart then began beating again.
This technology currently costs around $250,000 and enables the heart to last as long as 10 hours outside the human body. With this kind of advantage, organ availability for transplant is given a much wider window.
In the United Kingdom and in Australia, the device had been used in 15 successful heart transplant cases.
In the US, the device is still to be approved. If this comes through, however, the 2,400 heart transplant performed each year in the country for the past 20 years may be radically increased. Estimates suggest an expansion between 15 percent and 30 percent of lives saved.
