ASTANA – Kazakh University Medical Center’s (UMC) cardiac surgeons are working on creating a unique device for preserving organs outside the body.
Timur Lesbekov. Screenshot from the video.
This can significantly improve the results of transplants, reported the Prime Minister’s press service on Dec. 2.
As part of the research, specialists are creating technology to keep a beating heart, “breathing” lungs, and a functional liver. In the future, kidneys will be included in the research. The organ can remain alive for at least 24 hours.
“Our team has proven that a heart can be maintained safely and effectively for 29 hours with subsequent successful transplantation. There is currently only one analogue in the world. This is the U.S. TransMedics Organ Care System (OCS). And the difference between our device and the U.S. one is that it implies longer-term support for an isolated organ, and unlike the American analogue, our system provides for the treatment of the organ throughout the entire period of maintaining life outside the body, and we can treat and evaluate this organ by performing an ultrasound examination, an intravascular examination of the arteries that feed the heart, and thereby ensure its safety, so that the recipient receives the organ and does not have the risk of rejection or dysfunction of the transplant and is, most importantly, safe,” said Timur Lesbekov, director of the Clinical Academic Department of Cardiac Surgery at the University Medical Center Corporate Foundation.
