News – UK – Children receive hearts “brought back to life” by an NHS transplant machine

Children in the UK were given hearts that were brought back to life in a world first

The hearts that had stopped were restarted by a groundbreaking machine that could lead to better outcomes for cardiac patients in the future

NHS staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) and Royal Papworth Hospital (RPH) worked together on the medical breakthrough that saved the lives of six teenagers between the ages of 12 and 16 in 2020

The “breakthrough” technique known as circulatory death (DCD) donation involves resuscitating hearts and beating them outside of a human body until they are ready for transplant

Hearts donated in the past came from people who are brain dead, but whose hearts are still beating, which limits the scope for the number of possible transplants

With DCD, not only can more hearts be used, but they can be transported further, giving surgeons and nurses more time

The groundbreaking technique was first performed in Europe at RPH in 2015, but until recently was only possible in adults

The collaboration between RPH in Cambridge – whose team will bring the heart back – and Gosh, whose team will implant the organ, and NHS Blood & Transplant is the world’s first application of the DCD technique in pediatric transplants

He said, “In early 2020, we had more children on the transplant list at Gosh than ever before in my 16 years in the hospital

“Every day a child waits, there is a greater likelihood of getting too sick even for a transplant or worse

“Although medical advances are well advanced, for some children with heart failure, organ donation is really their only hope”

The DCD Heart Program has opened up more donation opportunities and has essentially doubled the number of transplants performed at Gosh on eligible patients weighing more than 20 kg, he said

“It is groundbreaking and work is underway to make the technique suitable for our much younger and smaller patients

We’re sharing some inspiring news about the world’s first pediatric heart transplant technique that resuscitates the heart outside of the body ð ?????? The technology has successfully expanded the donor pool & Increased Transplants for Eligible Children in the UK by 50 %Twittercom / LU1rt4Sath

“Ultimately, however, this still depends on families having discussions about their organ donation requests and then of course the courage to give this precious, life-saving gift in a time of unimaginable tragedy”

15-year-old Anna Hadley was the first patient to receive a DCD heart thanks to the partnership

The rare condition caused the muscles in the lower chambers of your heart – the ventricles – to become stiff and unable to properly fill with blood, impeding blood flow to the rest of your body and heart

Following an assessment by Gosh, the family was told that Anna’s best chance at recovery was a heart transplant

Her father Andrew said, “After weighing the potential risks and benefits of DCD heart transplantation with a more conventional one, we realized there was only one choice and we are so glad we made it”

“Five days after the transplant, Anna walked up and down the corridors, chatting and manning staff It was unbelievable’

There is a shortage of suitable donors across the UK, meaning the number of children who would benefit from an organ transplant exceeds the number of organs available

Children have longer waiting times than average due to the difficulty of finding the right match and because the approval rate for organ donation in children is much lower than the national adult average

Marius Berman, Consultant Cardiothoracic Transplant Surgeon at Royal Papworth Hospital, said, “Nobody in the world is doing this right now

“It was an incredible multi-institutional and multidisciplinary team effort to make this possible, involving all organ donation and removal specialists, transplant coordinators, doctors and surgeons

“Above all, this would not be possible without the generosity of every donor and their families”

Organ Transplant, Heart Transplant, National Health Service