Surgeons transplant heart that had stopped beating

Published: 24 October 2014

Source: James Gallagher, Health editor, BBC News website

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29751880

Science field: Health and transplants

 

Summary:

Donor hearts usually come from people who are confirmed as brain dead, even though their heart is still beating, but now, this has changed. A significant development took place at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia. It was the transplant of a heart that stopped beating for up to 20 minutes. The heart was kept in a machine known as “heart-in-a-box”. This machine keeps the donor liver functioning at body temperature so it restores the heartbeat and nourishes fluid to reduce damage to the heart muscle.

The first patient that had this new kind of transplant was Michelle Gribilas, 57, a woman who suffered from congenital heart failure. Michelle has said she feels a decade younger and that she is a "different person" now.

The breakthrough has been welcomed around the world because it is being tested that it could save up to 30% more lives by increasing the number of available organs.

Maureen Talbot, a senior cardiac nurse, told the BBC: "It is wonderful to see these people recovering so well from heart transplantation when, without this development, they may still be waiting for a donor heart."

 

Glossary:

Failure – the act or an instance of failing.

Heart-in-a-box – the machine that involved taking a heart that had stopped beating and reviving.

Nourishing – to supply with what is necessary for life, health, and growth.

Altogether – with all or everything included.

Breakthrough – an important and sudden advance, etc., as in science, that removes a barrier to progress.

Inroad – something that affects something else.

Perfuse – to pass (a fluid) through organ tissue to ensure adequate exchange of oxygen and carbon monoxide.

 

Review:

Recent advances in the fields of organ donation and organ transplant are nowadays increasing because of the advance of the heart-in-a-box machine. It allows the opportunity to improve the number and quality of organs available for transplant and it has introduced new hope for the treatment of serious diseases. However, it has been taken several issues.

The most common is the decision whether or not to donate organs and/or tissues for transplantation is an ethical (or moral) decision.

There is no one ‘right’ answer to the question of donate or not to donate. Only you can judge what will be the best. On the other hand, there is much that can be said that will help to ensure that the decision is wise:

-           Organ and tissue donation involves making a decision about how someone’s body has to be treated after death. There are many different views about this, but they all have in common that a dead body must be treated with respect. This treatment has a great significance, not only for spiritual and religious reasons, also for cultural and non-religious reasons.

 

-          Organ and tissue donation may be seen as one of the last acts of the person who donates. It is a decision about how that person wanted to live his or her life and be remembered.

 

-          Organ and tissue donation is also an ethical decision because it is intended to benefit others, the recipients of organs or tissues by transplantation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Written by Alba Pazos