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A donor heart recovery technique developed at Vanderbilt Health has been successfully adapted for children by pediatric heart transplant surgeons at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, potentially expanding access to lifesaving heart transplants for children.
In a recent New England Journal of Medicine article, surgeons with the Golisano Pediatric Heart Institute at Monroe Carell and Vanderbilt Health's adult heart transplant team reported on their successful recovery and transplantation of five donor hearts in children using the novel technique known as REUP (rapid recovery with extended ultraoxygenated preservation). Since then, five more children were saved using this approach.
"REUP has already helped expand the donor pool for adult heart transplantation, allowing us to transplant more patients, recover hearts from greater distances and achieve excellent outcomes," said Aaron Williams, M.D., assistant professor of cardiac surgery at Vanderbilt Health and first author of the article. "By adapting the technique for children, we've been able to recover donor hearts across all pediatric age groups, including hearts that otherwise would not have been used, creating a new opportunity to shorten wait times and save more young lives."
The REUP method was originally developed by Vanderbilt Health's adult heart transplant team for hearts donated after circulatory death (DCD). Unlike existing recovery methods that reanimate the donor heart, REUP preserves the heart by flushing it with a cold, oxygen-rich solution after death.
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