Hearts ‘brought back to life’ for transplant

NHS doctors have become the first in the world to give children new hearts which have been brought back to life by a ground-breaking machine.

Staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Royal Papworth Hospital (RPH) collaborated on the medical breakthrough, which saved the lives of six youngsters in 2020.

The “game-changing” technique – known as donation after circulatory death (DCD) – sees hearts being reanimated and kept beating outside a human body until they are ready for transplanting.

Donated hearts have historically come from people who are brain-dead but whose hearts are still beating, which limits the scope for the number of transplants possible.

DCD not only allows more hearts to be used, it also allows them to be transported further and gives surgeons and nurses more time.

The ground-breaking technique was first performed in Europe at the RPH in 2015 but has until recently only been possible in adults.

The team at the RPH in Cambridge retrieves the heart – and the team from Great Ormond Street implants the organ.