Taiwan hospital 2nd in Asia to transport 'beating heart'
台灣醫院成為亞洲第二家運送「跳動的心臟」的醫院
| Transplanted heart belonged to deceased foreign national who opted to become organ donor
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A medical team from Tri-Service General Hospital became the first in Taiwan and the second in Asia to transport a "beating heart" from Chiayi to Taipei for a successful heart transplant. On Sept. 8, a young foreign national who had opted to be an organ donor died from a cerebral hemorrhage, and his heart met the criteria for an organ donation, reported CNA. Since his heart function was "not that good," most medical teams declined the donation, but Tri-Service General Hospital, ranked 11th on the transplant priority list, decided to accept the case. At a press conference on Tuesday (Sept. 26), Lin I-chang (林宜璋), chief physician of the Cardiovascular Surgery Division at Tri-Service General Hospital, said that it was categorized as a "borderline functional heart." This was because the donor underwent a rigorous, one-hour cardiac massage and emergency treatment, including the use of cardiac stimulants, and the heart had to be transported from Chiayi to Taipei for transplantation, he said. However, Lin said that the biggest reason why the hospital did not give up on the transplant was that in addition to the donor being young and having a sufficiently functional heart, they had access to the Organ Care System (OCS). According to Lin, the OCS can make a "dead," donated heart beat again, and the heart can be kept functioning outside the body for up to 10 hours. Simultaneously, it can also monitor and evaluate heart function, allowing marginally functioning hearts that have not been used in the past to be viable for transplantation. Lin said this is a new system that has not been tried by any hospital in Taiwan. For this mission, three medical personnel who had received training in the U.S. were dispatched and transported by ambulance throughout the journey. Lin, who has completed over a hundred heart retrievals in his career, said that the mission was no longer a race against time. The heart within the OCS did not experience any ischemia (restricted or reduced blood flow), and he said it would not affect the recipient's survival rate. In the past, American medical teams faced snowstorms, where planes were unable to take off or land, but the machine continued to operate for 16 hours, resulting in successful heart transplant cases, said Lin. Previously in Taiwan, Lin said they could only transport hearts in frozen coolers to the south, bringing back non-beating, ischemic hearts to the north. He recalled, "During the day, they could take the high-speed train to save time, but at night, they had to use the ambulance to reach speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, risking their lives in transit." Lin added, "In the past, heart retrieval from Chiayi would involve at least 4 hours of ischemia, but this time there was almost no ischemic time." The recipient of the heart donation was a middle-aged man, and the transplant was completed on Sept. 9. He is in stable condition and has been transferred to the general ward, according to Lin. |
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| Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer | |
| 2023-09-27 |
