Transporting donor hearts without damage over significantly longer periods of time: That is the hope associated with the new Swedish machine perfusion system. In a multi-center study, an international team including MHH researchers investigated whether the Hope system (hypothermic oxygenated perfusion) is safe for transporting donor organs and offers advantages over the previous cold storage method. In the machine, the heart is connected to a circulatory pump at eight degrees Celsius and continuously supplied with oxygen and nutrients. This allows the donor heart to be stored for seven to eight hours.

"The results of the study now published in the journal "The Lancet" show that patients whose organs were transported with the HOPE machine had a 44 percent lower risk of suffering serious complications after transplantation compared to cold storage," explains associate professor Dr. Fabio Ius, surgeon in the Clinical Department of Cardiothoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery and co-author of the study. "The machine could therefore be a promising alternative for the preservation of donor hearts. However, further long-term studies are needed first."

In contrast, the standard cold preservation method used to date does not allow blood to flow through the donor organ during transportation from the donor to the recipient. To minimize damage to the tissue of the donor heart during this time, it is flushed once with a preservative solution and transported in cool boxes at four degrees Celsius. In this way, a donor heart can be stored for just four hours.

In addition to the MHH, 14 centers from eight European countries took part in the study. A total of 204 patients were included in the analysis. The new Hope system was used in 101 of them. The control group, in which cold storage was used, comprised 103 patients. "As the MHH, we were able to include five patients in the study, including three with the machine," says study coordinator Susanne Freyt.