Beating heart transplant article
- Thread starter Emma
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Hi Emma
Yes, it was amazing to see the heart beating in its box. Mind you, it did have a slightly unsettling flavour of the Frankenstein movies about it
For those unfamiliar with this, it involves keeping a donor heart beating by pumping the donor's blood and nutrients around it. They say it can keep a donor heart usable for up to 10 hours, vs the 4 to 5 hours currently. It was even said the heart improves slightly during the process and that some heart defects could be fixed whilst it was in the box. The US was talked mentioned as particularly benefiting from this, as your distances between donor and recipient can be too large to allow current transplants.
This was also well covered on Channel4. They had a long piece on it, including an interview with Sir Magdi Yacoub.
It can be viewed at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=2501
Yes, it was amazing to see the heart beating in its box. Mind you, it did have a slightly unsettling flavour of the Frankenstein movies about it
For those unfamiliar with this, it involves keeping a donor heart beating by pumping the donor's blood and nutrients around it. They say it can keep a donor heart usable for up to 10 hours, vs the 4 to 5 hours currently. It was even said the heart improves slightly during the process and that some heart defects could be fixed whilst it was in the box. The US was talked mentioned as particularly benefiting from this, as your distances between donor and recipient can be too large to allow current transplants.
This was also well covered on Channel4. They had a long piece on it, including an interview with Sir Magdi Yacoub.
It can be viewed at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=2501
