For the first time in the world, Australian surgeons took such a step as transplanting the “dead” hearts. Scientists say that even more lives can now be saved, as the number of organs suitable for transplantation will increase.
Earlier, only those organs that were removed from the body of a person who was in a state of clinical death served as a material for transplantation. Doctors from a hospital in Sydney became the first in history who decided to transplant hearts into three heart patients at once, whose donors died 20 minutes before the operation, i.e. "dead heart transplant".
For 20 years, Peter McDonald, who is the project leader, has been trying to find a way that will make it possible to maintain the vital activity of the heart outside the body. The result of his efforts was the so-called “heart in a box”. The principle of this device is that the donor's blood is poured into a special container, and then the heart is placed there. With the help of a sterile electrical circuit, the organ is forced to beat and maintain the desired temperature. The heart must be in the container for at least 4 hours before transplantation, so you can see how the organ will behave after transplantation.
The patients, who were the first to receive organs in this way, are doing well at the moment.
Source: estet-portal.com.
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