Heart In A Box: Beating Heart Technology at UCLA could revolutionize field of heart transplantation

'Beating heart' technology could revolutionize field of heart transplantation.
Learn more at:
http://transplants.ucla.edu
http://uclahealth.org/AbbasArdehali
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYWmYJNg5Jw
Contact us at 1-800-UCLA-MD1 or http://uclahealth.org/PRS for more information.

The heart transplantation team at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical is currently leading a national, multicenter phase 2 clinical study of an experimental organ-preservation system that allows donor hearts to continue functioning in a near-physiologic state outside the body during transport.

The Organ Care System (OCS), developed by medical device company TransMedics, works this way: After a heart is removed from a donor's body, it is placed in a high-tech OCS box and is immediately revived to a beating state, perfused with oxygen and nutrient-rich blood, and maintained at an appropriate temperature. The device also features monitors that display how the heart is functioning during transport.

The current standard of transporting donor hearts in iceboxes in a non-functioning state, which has been used for decades, requires the restarting of the heart once it has been placed inside the recipient.

"The concept of transplanting a donor heart in a beating state is revolutionary," said Dr. Abbas Ardehali (http://uclahealth.org/AbbasArdehali), surgical director of the heart and lung transplantation program at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and principal investigator of the OCS trial. "This promising technology may improve the function of the donor heart, because it remains in a near-physiologic state. It can also help us better assess the suitability of a potential donor, since we can test the heart in the device."

Ardehali said the technology could also lead to better tissue matching between donor hearts and recipients because the box would grant the transplant team more time to test the heart for potential rejection factors.

Learn more at http://transplants.ucla.edu or contact us at 1-800-UCLA-MD1 for more information.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Abbas Ardehali
• Ann Hickey
• MD
• ucla transplantation
• heart transplant
• heart in a box

[UCLAHealth]

Thank you for all of the great comments about this amazing new technology!

[wonkybucket]

How has this not been dubbed "The BeatBox"?

[drum2survive]

why isnt this stuff on the news? besides all the negative crap they feed us

[xocass620]

I don't really understand all of the neative comments on this. This is an amazing technology and is honestly breathtaking. What a miracle that so many lives will be saved more effeciently with this technology. Its a gift from and to the medical community. Bravo.

[DIZAZZO]

@kiplinger00

Yes, this renew my faith on people. Why don´t use all that effort on war and bad stuff, helping people doing things like this?

Cheers from Brazil.

[jorge10928]

This is awesome.

[PavanDadlani]

heart in a box is real!!!!.....

[kiplinger00]

i love seeing things like this. Amazing!

[dp7]

They got this idea from Justin Timberlake's dick in a box.

[czs716]

I'm not even going to begin to comment to all the people before me. It's a shame this video had to receive so many negative comments. Good video cyrus.

[hughtub]

@ShakespeareAvenue Our country was set up with 1 goal in mind, the least possible number of people overseeing other people's actions. Governments only legitimately exist to protect individuals from infringements by other individuals. Taxation, being a form of theft, should therefore be minimized to only funding the protection of other thieves (though I say police and prisons should be funded by making prisoners work to pay for the cost). Bush was a neo-con big-govt statist.