Vanderbilt Hospital makes pivotal medical preservation method for donor hearts
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A medical breakthrough discovery is spreading across different programs but has first started at Vanderbilt Hospital.
REUP, which stands for rapid recovery with extended ultra oxygenated preservation, is a new form of preservation for heart organs.
It was created by doctors at Vanderbilt Health’s adult heart transplant team and is a step further into gifting a new heart that utilizes organs donated after someone has died.
“Over the last years, the field of donation from circulatory death has developed,” said Dr. Ziv Beckerman, the associate chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and associate professor of cardiac surgery at Monroe Carell’s Jr. Children’s Hospital.
DCD, which means a donation after circulatory death, and a person has fully died before the organs are ethically collected.
“Historically, these organs were never able to be salvaged and used to help other people and patients,” Beckerman said.
It’s a process that requires preserving the heart that could last up to 10 hours.
“We basically use that solution to revive the heart only and we don’t get the heart to work. We basically just flush it with a special solution that protects it and that allows us to procure the organ,” he said.
The REUP tactic has already saved adults lives and now has made its way to the pediatric medical field.
“The last 10 heart transplants here in the last few months were all REUP hearts that come from donors that wouldn’t be able to be donors. So, if we didn’t take those hearts and save ten patients, these hearts would go to the trash,” Beckerman explained.
While the waitlists and supplies grow, time ticks for the pediatric patients who are in serious conditions.
“Clearly if we can give a patient a new heart, which is a normal heart, that would be way preferable but there is a huge organ shortage. There are a large percentage of patients that do not make it to their transplants, then die on the waiting list,” he said.
Beckerman encourages families to sign up to be donors, to give a heart and a new chance at life to someone else.
“For families, for everyone out there that truly wants to help others please, if you get to a point where you need to consider that, please think about other families and their loved ones,” he said.
So far, over 15 teams have visited the facility to learn the REUP process to save lives, one heart at a time. To learn more about REUP, you can visit Vanderbilt’s website.
