Heart Kept Alive Outside Body for 12 Hours

In an experiment that may eventually expand the pool of available organs for transplantation, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC, PA, USA) were able to keep a human heart alive outside the body for nearly 12 hours. They used a new experimental organ preservation and transportation system.

Currently, organs are packed in coolers filled with ice and special solutions and can be preserved safely for limited periods of time, called cold ischemic time. The cold ischemic time for the heart, once removed from a donor and with no blood supply, is about six hours. The new system, called the Portable Organ Preservation System (POPS), was developed by TransMedics, Inc. (Woburn, MA, USA). The POPS maintained the human heart in its normal physiologic state, with continuous blood flow, for about 12 hours before researchers elected to disconnect the organ for additional testing. The technique might also reduce or eliminate the cell destruction to the donor organ that sometimes results when oxygenated blood is reintroduced into the organ during transplant surgery.

The POPS weighs about 70 pounds and is shaped like a box that can fit in an ambulance or private jet. The system includes a four-hour battery, an electro-perfusion device, bio-compatible organ-specific components and proprietary chemical solutions that bathe the organ. The researchers say that perfusion with POPS may result in improved organ function by ‘resuscitating' previously unusable organs. POPS may also allow the use of hearts and lungs from non-heart-beating donors.

"Current technology provides only a small window of opportunity to transport and transplant an organ, thereby greatly limiting the availability of organs to those in need,” said Robert Kormos, M.D., professor of surgery and director of thoracic transplantation at UPMC. "A longer preservation time would allow us to share organs across greater distances, and more patients would benefit from life-saving transplants.”




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Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center