First Beating Heart Transplant In UK

UK doctors have succeeded in doing the first beating heart transplant for a 58-year-old man and says the procedure has more scope in the future.

Professor Bruce Rosengard, at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, led the team that transferred a beating heart said: the heart needs to be kept warm as to body temperature and beating before transplanting.

Due to risks of damage and deterioration, removed organs are usually placed on ice and transferred to the recipient within four to six hours.

TransMedics Organ Care System, a new technology, started in Boston, US, with the meaning that organ for transplant can be kept for longer time in an alive state. Thus organs are usually cut and submerged in a highly concentrated potassium solution, and put in an ‘igloo’ to get transported and it takes about 20 minutes – said Dr. Rosengard.

So here, the cutted heart from the donor with saline and potassium solution, and kept in a temperature around 34 to 35 degrees centigrade (to reduce stress) and is connected to the machine along with some of the donor's blood.

When it stops to beat, put it into the machine by giving oxygen and nutrient-filled blood in order to restart it.

Dr. Rosengard and British Heart Foundation's medical director, Professor Peter Weissberg exclaims that it was an exciting experience and will revolutionise the future heart transplant surgery and places hope in other transplants also.

Advertisement

Chris Rudge, managing and transplant director of UK Transplant says that organs to be transplanted should be in good quality and more donors are in need to get a donar card.