Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
News 5 Cleveland WEWS
Heart in a box allows doctors to expand organ donor pool
By Tiffany Tarpley,
2024-06-07
University Hospitals is finding new ways to expand the donor pool.
According to doctors, there’s a serious disconnect when it comes to the number of patients in need of organ donation and available donors.
“There’s only about 2,500 to 3,000 heart transplants that happen in the United States per year and yet there are probably over 100,000 people with advanced heart failure who would benefit from heart transplantation,” said Director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Center at UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, Dr. Eiran Gorodeski.
In August of 2023, University Hospitals used ex vivo organ translation for the very first time.
University Hosptials Doctors bringing in first heart using ex vivo organ preservation to UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute
“We can put the heart in a specifically designed box, it’s called ex vivo perfusion, which is essentially providing the heart with oxygen, blood and nutrients, allow it to beat. so this avoids any potential damage that could occur to the heart cells from damage due to lack of oxygen or cooling,” said UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute Cardiac Surgeon Dr. Yasir Abu-Omar.
“Then the heart is transported…the time’s not limited, but that can be transported from practically anywhere in the United States to anywhere in the United States and allow the heart to remain healthy and be transported in an individual, this really does open up the spectrum to being able to utilize hearts that are located at further away locations.”
Patient Nicholas Mitchell, 35, of Shaker Heights, received his new heart through this process.
Nicholas Mitchell Nicholas Mitchell, heart recipient
Last summer, he spent a total of 70 days in the hospital waiting for the transplant, receiving the transplant and recovering from the surgery. He said he’s amazed at how far he’s come. “Knowing what I’ve been through and me just waking up and seeing where I was, I never thought I would just be living my life right now, not worrying about [congestive heart failure.]
In the last year, the institute has used ex vivo organ transplantation for four patients.
“Similar techniques are used for kidneys, lungs and livers as well,” said Omar. “Its use is expanding across all organs, not just hearts.”
Gorodeski said another aspect of expanding the donor pool includes being able to accept hearts from those who were once unable to donate.
“We’ve had many cases where we’ve transplanted donor hearts from donors who had Hepatitis, our recipient contracted Hepatitis C because the virus came along with the donated heart,” he said. “But then we were, in many cases, successfully able to treat and cure the Hepatitis C from our patient.”
We Follow Through Want us to continue to follow through on a story? Let us know. First Name Last Name Email What story do you want us to follow through on? What questions do you have? Please include the headline and/or URL of the story you want us to follow through on. Provide any other information that may help us to follow through on the story Captcha
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0