SURGEONS in Australia transplanted a heart which had stopped beating. This is for the first time in history that a team in Sydney revived and then transplanted a heart that had stopped beating for about 20 minutes.

The first patient who received a heart says she feels a decade younger and is now a different person. The novel technique used in Sydney involved taking a heart that had stopped beating and reviving it in a machine known as a ‘heart-in-a-box’. The heart is kept warm, the heartbeat is restored and a nourishing fluid helps reduce damage to the heart muscle.

This breakthrough is a major achievement toward reducing the shortage of donor organs and, as a result, 30pc more lives can be saved.

Previously only beating hearts from deceased donors were transplanted. Scientists are working on transplant medicine to find out new ways to help patients of end-stage organ failure. Shortage of donor organs compels the transplant community to develop new techniques so that marginal donor organs can be used successfully, benefiting more and more patients.

In Pakistan more than 150,000 people die annually owing to end-stage organ failure like kidneys, liver, heart, lungs. The only hope for them is deceased donor organs. In Pakistan, only kidneys and a few livers are being transplanted from living donors. Other organs are only transplanted from deceased organ donors.

Thousands of patients of kidney, liver, heart and pancreas are suffering because they are not able to get organs. There are also blind people who need corneas to see the light. This is possible only when people agree during their lifetime to donate their organs.

Murli Dhar

Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2014