A record year for heart transplants, with an unusual twist
https://unos.org/news/in-focus/2022-heart-transplants-steep-increases-in-transplants-from-dcd-donors/
My previous ICU career was working with medical patients and transplant patients. I am very familiar with UNOS, as they are the organ allocation program that facilitate patients getting a transplanted organ.
Something very interesting happened in 2022. Heart transplants were up in general, but one category of transplant went through the roof.
First off, heart transplants were up 21.5%. This is a huge increase. Why is this an anomaly? First, because you have to have a deceased person donate a heart. When mortality rates are low, organ availability is low. There are seasonal peaks to organ availability, such as summer time boating and motorcycle accidents, winter time auto and skiing accidents. DBD transplants are usually what organ donors are: they have been declared brain dead, and their family opts to keep them alive via life support until they can go to the OR to have their organs “procured” to donate. It has always been essential to have the heart beating and perfusing the body to ensure the organs all had blood flow prior to being removed for transplant. It is the LAST category above that is very odd. The number of “donor after CIRCULATORY death” heart transplants were up 68% in 2022. A total of 347 heart transplants were done with hearts where a person had ceased to circulate blood, AKA their heart had already stopped prior to procuring that organ for transplant. What makes this most interesting is that if the heart has stopped, it has not been receiving blood for a length of time, which means no oxygen as well. A heart muscle without oxygen is rapidly dying muscle. It is what causes damage during a heart attack: ischemic damage, AKA lack of oxygen to part of the heart. The heart cannot regenerate or heal damaged muscle. They are using perfusion machines to keep these hearts viable until transplant.
My question is what is the lifespan of a heart in this condition? Are they only using hearts that had sudden circulation loss due to an aneurysm rupture or other massive bleed out event? It does seem a little suspicious that they suddenly have reperfusion technology to use a heart that had circulatory death rather than brain death when we have this huge rise in “sudden deaths”.
So is there any word on the survival rate? Any comparison of the durability of the transplant? Rejection rate? So many unanswered questions. My feeble search attempts revealed nothing.
"It does seem a little suspicious that they suddenly have reperfusion technology to use a heart that had circulatory death rather than brain death when we have this huge rise in “sudden deaths”." - It's technocracy and the belief that people can save themselves and mankind. This battle of the mind has been going on since the beginning of time. Read "The Great Controversy Between Christ And Satan" - written in the 1800's. The same pattern keeps repeating over and over; there is a narrow path that allows one to renew their mind and step out of circular traps of "reason" - you are not your own. You were created. There is one absolute truth - Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Peace.