New 'Beating-Heart' Transplant Could Ease Organ Shortages
June 7, 2006 — -- Two weeks ago in the United Kingdom, a man in his late 50s received a new heart -- a heart that was still beating while waiting to be transplanted.
The operation, at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, was the first successful "beating-heart transplant" performed in the United Kingdom.
Instead of packing the heart on ice after removing it from the organ donor, this new technique keeps the heart warm and beating because it's attached to a specialized machine while it's transported to its new owner, who can be hundreds of miles away.
If approved for U.S. use, the beating-heart machine has the potential to help solve a chronic organ shortage crisis, experts say.
The device could "increase the pool of 'acceptable' donor hearts by allowing surgeons to transplant otherwise 'marginal' donor organs," said Dr. John Byrne, chairman of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
By being attached to the device, a heart that may not normally be transplanted could be resuscitated because the heart would be pumping and having fresh blood flow through it.
As a result, the donor supply could increase, explained Dr. Barley Griffith, professor and chief of Cardiac Surgery at University of Maryland. The heart can also endure longer periods of time outside of the body when attached to the device.
In the United States, about 90,000 patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant -- 3,000 of whom are waiting for a new heart, according to Transmedics.
The Organ Care System perfuses "warm, oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood through the organ from the time of removal until it is implanted," according to Transmedics.
The transplant done on the man in the United Kingdom was part of a European trial, and about 20 more similar transplants are planned, the BBC reported.
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