A 55-year-old man has a new heart thanks to cutting-edge “Heart in a Box” technology that allows for heart donation after circulatory death. CHICAGO, IL — For the first time in Illinois, surgeons have successfully transplanted a heart donated after death.
Jerry Dorsey, a 55-year-old from Champaign, had a life expectancy of fewer than two weeks when he received his new heart last month at the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in Chicago, Northwestern Medicine confirmed.
“In my 20 years as a transplant surgeon, this is the biggest leap forward our field has taken and the best opportunity we’ve had to expand the number of available hearts,” Dr. Duc Thinh Pham, director of heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Bluhm, said in a news release.
Until recently, hearts from donors who suffer circulatory death were not considered for donation, but that’s changing due to a new technology nicknamed “Heart in a Box,” which resuscitates a stopped heart, keeping it pumping outside the body until transplantation, according to Northwestern Medicine. Estimates suggest this updated approach could increase the number of available donor hearts by as much as 30 percent in the U.S.
Historically, heart transplants use organs from donors who have been declared brain dead following an event such as a traumatic injury or drug overdose, but whose hearts remain beating, usually with mechanical assistance. Now, when circulatory death is declared, surgeons can remove the stopped heart from the donor within minutes and connect it to the TransMedics Organ Care System Heart, according to Northwestwern Medicine. The portable “Heart in a Box” reanimates the organ and simulates the environment inside the body, pumping warm, oxygenated blood while the heart is transported. Previously, transplant teams would place donor hearts on ice in a cooler.
“With standard hypothermic preservation, we only have about four hours to get the heart from the donor to recipient,” Dr. Benjamin Bryner, associate director of heart transplantation and mechanical support and director of the expanded donation program at Bluhm, said in the news release.
“With the OCS, we’re no longer constrained by time, which means we can travel further across the country. This is particularly valuable for our patients who are harder to match, now giving us more options to find their perfect match and get them the transplant they need.”
Surgeons can use the Heart in a Box to look for signs of injury or damage from coronary artery disease in a way that was not previously possible in cases of circulatory death, according to Northwestern Medicine.
While donation after circulatory death has become increasingly common in transplants for other organs, the practice remains rare for heart transplants. Only a handful of centers in the U.S. currently perform such transplants, but those in the United Kingdom and Australia have successfully used the method for years.
An estimated 70 percent of donor hearts go unused annually, according to Northwestern Medicine. There are nearly 3,500 people still waiting for a heart, and 5,000 more are added to the list each year.
“This is a very exciting opportunity to get more of patients transplanted in less time, so they can get back to their lives and families,” Pham said in the news release.
Source: patch.com, article by Anna Schier,
Patch Staff
