Long-Distance Transportation of Human Hearts for Transplantation

This communication describes the preservation and long-distance (203 to 1,400 km) transportation of 6 human donor hearts with a hemodynamically successful short-term outcome in the recipients, all of whom were critically ill from end-stage cardiac failure. These techniques of long-distance donor heart transportation, not previously described in the human, offer prospects for markedly improving the logistics of heart transplantation in critically ill recipients who require immediate transplantation in face of limited local capability for securing an adequate donor heart. These systems may also prove of value in cardiac transplant protocols, such as rapid retransplantation during rejection and programmed protocols for recipient pre-treatment to promote enhancement of graft survival, that require obtaining a donor heart in an expedient manner.