一项新的技术能够使心脏停止跳动的移植供体继续延续生命。这种器官保健系统(OCS)已在英国医院中投入使用，效果很好。
OCS系统心跳的视图很难被忘记，因为它显示了捐赠者携带血液和氧气的体外心脏跳动情况。
麻省理工学院对此项研究非常关注。为什么这个系统如此不寻常？通常心脏移植手术只有来自脑死亡捐献者的心脏，而他们的身体仍然健康。
Antonio Regalado 报道外科医生使用救生系统来保持近期离世的人的器官的存活。心脏用于需要器官的人来维持生命。Regalado称其像带有氧气供应，无菌室和油管的轮式小车一样，把它们联接到供体心脏并使它充满血液和营养。
外科医生认为如果没有这样的救生系统，来自死亡捐助者的心脏再经手术时会过于受损而不利于使用。英国外科医生说，用了该系统，心脏就会得到基本的血液注入从而恢复它的能量。
Waleed Hassanein博士今年早些时候说，安全地移植供体心脏可能是一个范例，这样会增加可行的捐赠者的心脏来帮助更多的患有终末期心力衰竭病人。
Regalado解释说：来自脑死亡捐赠者的心脏在其体内可以冷却下来，停止跳动并摘除，在4°C保存运输。“低温可降低约90%的组织代谢率，可以延长器官到达接受者之间的时间。几乎所有的器官移植，包括肾脏都使用着这种方式。”
“从运输放在专用盒中的低温心脏到让它们恢复温度和功能是器官移植重要的一步。最近有一种经测试的称为热灌注的技术，科学家们研究当切断一头猪的腿后在12小时内如果它得到足够的营养供应就能用热灌注技术取代。保持捐献器官处于一定温度的能力，使体外器官处于存活状态可以解决许多与低温缺血存储限制相关的问题。输送温暖的、含氧的，营养丰富的血液在器官移除到植入之间的时间意味着器官在身体之外能够承受更长的时间。
在心脏移植手术中，器官被放置在模块中并恢复到跳动状态。灌注模块被设计的也能使无菌超声评估器官和血样进行脱机分析。
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A system that enables heart transplants involving hearts that stopped beating in the donor's body continues to save lives. The Organ Care System (OCS) has been used in UK hospitals with good results.
The device is from an Andover, Massachusetts, company, TransMedics. The company states it was founded to address the unmet need for more and better organs for transplantation.
A view of a heart beating on an OCS system is hard to forget, as it shows a donated heart beating outside the body while being with blood and oxygen.
The technology at work is in focus in a report in MIT Technology Review. Why is this system so unusual? Typically, "heart transplants only come from brain-dead donors whose hearts are cut away while their bodies are still healthy."
Antonio Regalado reported on the device used by surgeons to keep an organ of a person recently passed away. The heart is used on people who need the organ to stay alive. Regalado described it as a wheeled cart with oxygen supply, sterile chamber and tubing, "to clamp onto a donor heart and keep it fed with blood and nutrients."
Without a device such as this, hearts from dead donors are considered by surgeons as too damaged to use. With the device, said a UK surgeon, the heart gets the essential infusion of blood to restore its energy.
Earlier this year, a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon Stephen Large, who carried out such a transplant, said he believed use of the OCS could have positive implications for reducing the numbers of patients on the National Health Service waiting list for a donor heart.