Combating Donor Organ Shortage: Organ Care System Prolonging Organ Storage Time and Improving the Outcome of Heart Transplantations

摘要

Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally contributing to 37% of all global deaths. A common complication of cardiovascular disease is heart failure, where, in such cases, the only solution would be to conduct a heart transplant. Every 10 minutes a new patient is added to the transplant waiting list. However, a shortage of human donors and the short window of time available to find a correct match and transplant the donors' heart to the recipient means that numerous challenges are faced by the patient even before the operation could be done, reducing their chances of living even further.