A
'box' to keep the heart beating
Transplant surgeons have for long
complained about how demand for organ transplants vastly out strips supply, and
how patients die waiting for an organ or drop out of the list because they are
too sick for a transplant. And, many constantly innovate to make use judicious
use of harvested organs. Now, inspired by an expensive commercially available
product abroad, a team of doctors in Chennai has come up with a "box"
that can keep aheart harvested healthy for up to two
hours beyond its four-hour shelf life. The harvested heart is pulled out from
the ice pack, thawed and placed in the box that keeps it "alive" -
beating, with blood and oxygen flowing through.
"Every time we receive a call about a brain dead donor, the teams rush to retrieve the organs. It's packed in special solutions and placed on ice. Doctors then sprint back to the aircraft or ambulances and ensure they pass through a green corridor -no red signals -to reach the hospital concerned swiftly .It may look extremely dramatic but it is done so because beyond four hours there may be a significant injury to the harvested heart, making it unusable," said transplant surgeon Dr K R Balakrishnan. It may be possible to shift organs within a city in that time, but when the organ has to come from a neighbouring district or from another state, surgeons are often unsure of its quality .
"Every time we receive a call about a brain dead donor, the teams rush to retrieve the organs. It's packed in special solutions and placed on ice. Doctors then sprint back to the aircraft or ambulances and ensure they pass through a green corridor -no red signals -to reach the hospital concerned swiftly .It may look extremely dramatic but it is done so because beyond four hours there may be a significant injury to the harvested heart, making it unusable," said transplant surgeon Dr K R Balakrishnan. It may be possible to shift organs within a city in that time, but when the organ has to come from a neighbouring district or from another state, surgeons are often unsure of its quality .
"It's tough to put the harvested organ in a patient when you are not so sure of the quality. The indigenous box we assembled has changed that. It helps patient outcomes. More importantly, there are no additional costs," he said.
"Lung injury is a common problem we face when called to harvest a lung. Sometimes it may be extremely tough to find this ahead of transplant. Putting it in a box and testing it will hopefully become one of the standards in the future," said lung transplant surgeon Dr Madhu Shankar. The new technology will also help doctors treat lungs with antibiotics in the box before transplant.
As of now, doctors use the box only in
operation theatres as an experiment. As the next step, it should be used for
transporting organs from one hospital to another.
Source: www.timesofindia.com
12.08.2016
Don’t be afraid to change . You may lose something good but
you may gain something better
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