Transplant Surgery Using Dead Heart Is Successful: 30% More Lives Can Be Saved

Australian researchers and surgeons have reportedly successfully performed heart transplant surgery using a heart that had stopped beating, according to the website abc.net. 

The recent breakthrough is reportedly expected to save the lives of 30% more heart transplant patients, according to the media outlet Times Of India. 

Until now, transplant surgery was reportedly done solely with still-beating donor hearts from brain-dead patients. The donor heart was reportedly dead for 20 minutes before it was resuscitated with preservation fluid and then transplanted. 

The procedure of using hearts that have stopped beating is called a "paradigm shift" and was reportedly developed by the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and Sydney's St. Vincent's Hospital. 

"In this technique, what happens is we have a patient who's brain is almost completely gone unfortunately, sadly but they still have a little bit of brain function and so they can't be classified as being dead," Professor Bob Graham, the executive director of the institute who led the research team, told abc.net. 

Graham continued, "We then by law have to wait another five minutes to ensure that the heart has really stopped, then we can take the heart out and we can put it on a console where we connect it up with blood going through the heart and providing oxygen."

The heart then starts beating again, according to the professor. 

"We can keep it warm and we can transport it on this console and we also give it a preservation solution that allows it to be more resistant to the damage of lack of oxygen," added Graham. 

The team at St. Vincent's Hospital reportedly announced that they had transplanted three heart failure patients using donor hearts that had stopped beating for 20 minutes. 

One of the patients, Michelle Gribilas, who was suffering from congenital heart failure reportedly had the surgery more than two months ago. 

"Now I'm a different person altogether. I feel like I'm 40 years old - I'm very lucky," stated the 57-year-old.