Kylie Mena

Derek Minor

Emily McLaughlin

Elle Meisner

As we learned in class, there are multiple issues that accompany ischemic tissue. Aside from needing to return oxygen to the tissue, there is the issue of reperfusion injury. When reperfusion happens too quickly, the influx of oxygen to the oxygen-starved tissue can cause backflow in complex 1 of the electron transport chain, resulting in the creation of reactive oxygen species and subsequent tissue damage. OCS was a machine created by TransMedics which takes donor hearts and, once removed from the body, keeps them perfused with warm, nutrient rich blood to prevent any hypoxic tissue damage. By continuing oxygen perfusion to the heart ex-vivo, this will help to decrease reperfusion damage to the tissue of the heart and decrease complications after heart transplant surgeries. This has big implications because transport, as well as time constraints on organ longevity will no longer constrain donor pools, increasing the number of hearts getting to those in need of them. The study we found even was able to perform the first ex-vivo angioplasty on a heart, proving that further testing can be done before transplantation to ensure donor-recipient compatibility and reduce rejection symptoms.

Article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22698606