Prolonged Preservation Of The Heart Prior To Transplantation

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the recipient. As
far as the man in Oregon goes, he will probably not receive a donor heart
before his own expires.

Currently, when a heart is being prepared for transplantation, it
is simply submerged in an isotonic saline ice bath in an attempt to stop
all metabolic activity of that heart. This cold submersion technique is
adequate for only four hours. However, if the heart is perfused with the
proper media, it can remain viable for up to 24 hours. The technique of
perfusion is based on intrinsically simple principles. What occurs is a
physician carefully excises the heart from the donor. He then accurately
trims the vessels of the heart so they can be easily attached to the
perfusion apparatus. After trimming, a cannula is inserted into the
superior vena cava. Through this cannula, the preservation media can be
pumped in.

What if this scenario were different? What if doctors were able
to preserve the donor heart and keep it viable outside the body for up ...

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of these compounds
are pyruvate and a pyruvate containing compound known as
perfluoroperhydrophenanthrene-egg yolk phospholipid (APE-LM). It was
determined that adding pyruvate to the media improved postpreservation
cardiac function while adding glucose had little or no effect. To test
the function of these two intermediates, rabbit hearts were excised and
preserved for an average of 24.5 1 0.2 hours on a preservation apparatus
before they were transplanted back into a recipient rabbit. While
attached to the preservation apparatus, samples of the media output of the
heart were taken every 2 hours and were assayed for their content. If
the compound in the media showed up in large ...

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