Dubbed an ‘organ preservation system,’ the Transmedics machine could revolutionize heart transplants forever. While it’s still being tested by a heart transplanting team at UCLA Medical, the Transmedics is already a certified game changer. What it does is preserve a beating heart until it’s ready to be transplanted. This marks a huge departure from ‘traditional’ open heart work.
Traditional Heart Preservation Methods
See, the way it’s usually done is a ‘dead’ heart is kept in an icebox. This method, known as static cold storage, involves placing the donor heart in a cooler filled with ice. The heart is then transported to the recipient’s location. While this method has been the standard for decades, it has significant limitations. The cold temperature slows down the metabolic processes of the heart, but it does not stop them entirely. This means that the heart can only be preserved for a limited time, typically around four to six hours, before it begins to deteriorate. This time constraint can limit the distance a donor heart can travel, potentially reducing the pool of available organs for patients in need.
How the Transmedics Machine Works
With the Transmedics, however, the heart goes into a chamber where it’s going to be ‘perfused with oxygen and…blood.’ This innovative system mimics the conditions of the human body, keeping the heart warm and beating. The machine continuously supplies the heart with oxygenated blood, nutrients, and electrolytes, maintaining its functionality and viability for a longer period. This approach not only extends the preservation time but also allows for real-time monitoring of the heart’s condition. Surgeons can assess the heart’s performance and make more informed decisions about its suitability for transplantation.
To test it, of course, requires warm bodies. The transplanting team is currently putting the Transmedics through its paces to prove if it’s a viable addition to any operating theatre. We think it is. Early results from clinical trials have been promising, showing that hearts preserved using the Transmedics system have a higher success rate and better post-transplant outcomes compared to those preserved using traditional methods. This could potentially lead to an increase in the number of successful heart transplants and improve the quality of life for recipients.
The implications of this technology extend beyond heart transplants. Researchers are exploring the possibility of using similar systems for other organs, such as lungs, livers, and kidneys. If successful, this could revolutionize the entire field of organ transplantation, making more organs available and improving the success rates of these life-saving procedures.
Can the same be done for human brains? We want to be cyborgs. While the idea of preserving and transplanting human brains may seem like science fiction, advancements in medical technology continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. For now, the focus remains on improving the preservation and transplantation of vital organs, but who knows what the future holds?
And a video:
Source UCLA Health
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