Extending a Donor Heart's Life

Their work reveals that although ex situ perfusion might still cause some damage to the heart, using a cardioprotective drug cocktail prevented severe damage, increasing the viability of the hearts for a posterior transplant. The authors know that more work is needed to validate the findings in humans, but their work shows promise in improving donated organ survival. While we keep wondering if the medical TV shows are true to reality with patients successfully recovering after hours waiting for a heart coming from afar, this team has shown that, in this case, the waiting hours in between may ultimately determine transplant success.

Read the full article from the Department of Pharmacology here.