Hearts that are suitable for transplantation into needy recipients are always in short supply, and that’s partially because our methods of preserving and transporting the organs makes transplants extremely complicated. Currently, heart surgeons can transplant hearts from brain-dead patients; that is, patients who were on life support and whose hearts could be cooled and preserved prior to removal from the body.

But there are victims of traumatic death (those who are never on life support) whose hearts may stop before a surgical team can prepare them for removal. As soon as blood stops pumping, the tissue begins to die very quickly – within minutes, the otherwise-healthy organ becomes unusable. That’s why this device from Transmedics is a true miracle of medical technology. The “heart in a box” machine can keep a heart alive and beating, or even revive one that has already stopped beating.

By keeping the heart working and circulating blood, the box makes it possible to harvest many more hearts; they could even be collected from patients who have already died. Doctors already do this with kidneys, livers, and other organs that don’t deteriorate quite as rapidly as the heart. The heart in a box can increase the number of available hearts by 20 to 30 percent each year.

According to Transmedics, the heart in a box machine is part of a wider shift away from preserving organs on ice. The new method of keeping tissue warm, alive, and functional will save the lives of countless people who, with cold preservation, would otherwise die waiting on a live transplant. So far, eight trials have been completed with the device and all eight have resulted in successful heart transplants. For people on the transplant list, this is truly a life-changing development.

The post Heart in a Box: Device Revives Dead Hearts For Transplant first appeared on Gajitz.

Lab-grown body parts are plentiful in science fiction, but they haven’t yet made it into the everyday practices of real-life surgeons. A groundbreaking surgery in Sweden might change that after a patient received a transplanted trachea that was grown from his very own stem cells. In an incredible cooperation between surgeons at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden and University College in London, a man whose own windpipe was ruined by cancer was the recipient of the first donor-less transplant in June 2011.

The surgeons started off by creating 3-D scans of the patient’s windpipe. Researchers at the University College in London then created a glass scaffold that was an exact replica of the original windpipe. The scaffold was soaked in the patient’s own stem cells from his bone marrow, which quickly took hold and created a brand new trachea in just two days. Thanks to the fact that the trachea was made from his own stem cells and did not come from a donor, there was no chance of rejection by his body and no need for the typical anti-rejection drugs needed by other transplant recipients. The best news to come out of this milestone is that people who desperately need organ transplants may not have to wait for a suitable donor in the future; this technology could be used to grow almost anything they need in a lab within just a few days.

The post Organs Made to Order: First Lab-Grown Trachea Transplant first appeared on Gajitz.