Fundraisers help to keep hearts beating with box
TEAM BUYS PIONEERING SYSTEM THAT WILL SAVE MORE LIVES
IT sounds like something from science fiction: a ‘box’ which keeps human hearts ‘alive’ and beating outside their bodies.
But this technology is very real, and it is already saving lives at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital.
The ex-vivo perfusion system, filmed for the first time for the recent BBC2 documentary ‘Heart Transplant: A Chance to Live,’ keeps donor hearts beating for up to eight hours after they’ve been removed, allowing the Freeman’s expert surgeons to carry out transplants on some of the sickest heart patients.
This extra time allows hearts to be transplanted from further away and, even more vitally, gives surgeons extra time to prepare patients with complex heart conditions for their surgery.
Freeman Hospital cardiothoracic and transplant surgeon, Fabrizio de Rita, said: “It can take three to four hours just to prepare complex congenital heart patient for their surgery before we even think about starting the transplant itself, some of them requiring at the same time corrective surgery to accommodate a normal heart, so the time pressures are even more critical.
“The OCS (Organ Care System) takes this pressure away and has opened that all-important window to at least eight hours. There is much evidence now that using this system improves outcomes for our sickest recipients on the waiting list.”
Mr de Rita added: “This technology will also expand the heart donor pool, giving us also the possibility to retrieve a donor’s heart with marginal function and improve them while on the machine, otherwise being unusable.”
The surgeon thanked fundraisers from CHUF, the Children’s Heart Unit Fund, which had helped the hospital acquire the machine.
Among CHUF’s fundraisers is Sergio Petrucci, from Ashbrooke, Sunderland, who has helped raise over £200,000 for the charity after his daughter Luna had major heart surgery at the Freeman.
Sergio recently met members of the team and was shown the OCS he helped fund. He said: “It’s been absolutely fantastic to see this pioneering technology first hand and meet so many members of this amazing team.
“It’s so important when setting up fundraising events to be able to show where the money raised goes to and so we’re delighted to finally share this with our many supporters from the Wearside area.”