Posted on 08/31/2011 4:07:27 PM PDT by El Sordo
It's like something out of science fiction or a horror movie or both: in order to facilitate transplants, we can now keep human hearts alive and beating and toasty warm inside a special electromechanical box full of fresh blood.
Up until this point, live organs have been transported from donors to patients in coolers, buried in ice to keep them "fresh." This only works for about six hours, which is why private jets, helicopters, and ambulances are used to speed these irreplaceable and lifesaving items around the country as quickly as possible.
Now, if I where a disembodied heart, I'd find an icy cooler a distinctly uncomfortable way to travel. A company called TransMedics agrees, which is why it's constructed this self-contained Organ Care System, or OCS. You can stick a heart into this fancy device, hook it up to a supply of donated blood, and start it beating again, and it'll happily sit there, warm and toasty and productive and supplied with all the oxygen and nutrients it could want. The housing is even clear plastic so that the heart can see out and enjoy the trip, which is probably a fairly unique experience for an otherwise internal organ.
You can see how it works in the video below, although keep in mind that it does show A LIVE BEATING HEART IN A BOX:
Video at link.
THEY SAVED HITLER’S BRAIN!!!
You could make the most convincing rendition of Edgar Allen Poe’s a “Telltale Heart” stage performance ever!
“My God! Schwartz is dead?”
No government program developed that life-saving technology.
No government program developed that life-saving technology.
[cue Hank Williams, Sr.]
I would guess serendipity made the discovery
I do too. Some great technology we’re witnessing in our time.
LOL!
I’m surprised they used real blood instead of oxygen therapeutics blood substitute, maybe mixed with real blood. The advantage is that oxygen therapeutics carries much more oxygen than hemoglobin.
There has been a concern in past that OT might damage metabolizing organs like the liver, so it is not yet in widespread use, but the heart is a muscle, so is not at as much risk.
There is even a possibility that OT could be used in “bypass” procedures, where blood moves artificially around a large section of artery, and OT flows through the artery, oxygenating it, along with chemicals that should not go through the rest of the body, but perform specific healing to that artery, like radically removing plaque, which is then filtered out, so does not risk heart attack or stroke.
I'd expect that if this pans out, some clever individual will develop an improved blood substitute.
It would be impressive if they could not only keep a heart alive like this, but eventually “tune it up” with plaque removal or grafting in valves then having the heart heal out side of a body. I'm probably getting way ahead of the curve though.
That sounds like the subject of a separate thread. Pretty interesting subject matter you’ve presented!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwd32Xa3uwc&feature=player_embedded
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.