BBC News has a story about a novel transplant.
Surgeons in Australia say they have performed the first heart transplant using a "dead heart". Donor hearts from adults usually come from people who are confirmed as brain dead but with a heart still beating. A team at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney revived and then transplanted hearts that had stopped beating for up to 20 minutes.
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Transplant Surgeons Use Heart that Stopped Beating
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(Score: 3) by Joe on Sunday October 26 2014, @08:53PM
I've always wondered why the donor hearts were kept on ice instead of transported as a Langendorff preparation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langendorff_heart). There isn't much detail on the the product webpage, but it seems very similar. It is a shame that it has taken 40-100 years for it to be adapted for use in human heart transplantation.
Another great thing about this is that it may improve the ability of gene delivery to cardiac tissue. Previous clinical trials seemed to be limited to about half an hour of treating the heart (with Adeno-associated virus vectors, IIRC) and this may extend that and improve efficiency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26 2014, @11:32PM
I wonder if, as a healthy person giving away his heart, you could live long enough to give the new owner a hand shake and a personal "good luck, don't fuck this chance up" message.
Man I so want Robocop arms ...