Beating heart in a box: The future of cardiac transplant

Abstract

More than 100,000 heart transplants have been carried out worldwide, following the first successful heart transplant in 1967. These procedures mostly rely on cold ischemic preservation of the donor's heart as it is inexpensive and relatively reliable. However, the well-known limitations of cold ischemic preservation impose significant challenges to heart transplantation and limit the number of donor's hearts that can be safely transplanted annually. The technology to transport donor hearts in this state has only been developed within the last decade, although the advantages of normothermic donor heart perfusion have been recognized for over a century. TransMedics Inc. designed and manufactured the Organ Care System (OCS) which is currently the only commercially available device with this capability.