While traditional heart transplantation relies on cold storage methods, where blood flow to the organ stops, causing even a few hours without oxygen to potentially damage the heart muscles. There is a risk that the body may reject the heart in such operations available. Also, post-surgery complications are possible.
Surgeons at NTUH have developed a special system for preserving organs to prevent this. It delivers oxygen-rich blood continuously to the donor heart.
This system operates the heart using external pumps, oxygenators, and reservoirs while it is outside the body.
“The heart continued to beat before and after it was taken out, and it never stopped,” noted Chen Yih-Sharng, the head of the organ transplantation team at NTUH.
Surgeons at the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) have successfully transplanted a donor heart without stopping its beating for the first time in history.
