World’s 1st ’Dead Heart’ Transplants Successful
Local Editor
For 20 years, the heart transplant unit at Sydney's St. Vincent's Hospital has been working hard to figure out a way to transplant a dead heart into a live patient. Doctors from the team announced their work had paid off.
They have successfully completed three transplants using hearts that had stopped beating for 20 minutes - said to be the first such transplants in the world, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Heart transplants typically rely on organs taken from brain-dead donors whose hearts are still beating.
The heart had stopped beating, and instead of being chilled after removal from the donor, it was revived and kept warm by a specialized procedure to keep it beating outside the body until the transplant operation.
Normally, hearts are kept beating inside the body of a brain-dead donor using life-support, but this puts a time limit on how long they can be kept as the organs can soon deteriorate, especially when they stop beating after they are removed.
Therefore, the heart is first placed in a special "heart in a box" machine that warms it up and keeps it beating for about four hours before the transplant operation. The preservation solution- which alone took 12 years to develop, minimizes damage to the organ after it has stopped beating and helps ensure it both survives the surgery and functions in the recipient's body, Sky News reports.
Additionally, the Herald reports that the new development could save more lives.
The secret to their success lies in cutting-edge technology and the preservation solution in which the non-beating hearts are immersed.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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