Annual Scientific Meeting welcomes Professor Peter MacDonald

CSANZ New Zealand Annual Scientific Meeting welcomes Professor Peter MacDonald.

In what has been described as a paradigm shift in heart transplantation, non-beating hearts have successfully been transplanted into patients with end stage heart disease. Professor Peter MacDonald of Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital Heart Lung Transplant Unit will be presenting this advance in heart failure care at the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand NZ Scientific meeting in Auckland this week.

For some people with advanced heart failure, heart transplantation remains the most effective therapy. However, this life saving procedure is limited by the availability of donor hearts. Until now, transplant units have relied on donations of still beating hearts after brain death. This restricts the number of potential heart donors, and the lives of recipients that may be saved.

Prof MacDonald’s team together with the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have developed a ground breaking heart preservation solution which can be used in hearts that have stopped beating before donation. The hearts are then connected to a circuit where they are kept beating and warm. The donor heart’s function can be assessed while on the circuit prior to transplantation.

This procedure has now been used in six successful heart transplants and has the potential to significantly reduce the shortage of organ donors.

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