A team at Cincinnati Children's hospital performed a lung-then-heart transplant on a 15-year-old patient with Castleman disease. The organs were transported and transplanted separately.
The hospital used TransMedics’ Organ Care System to transport the organs, which remained outside of the body for 12 hours, according to a Sept. 26 news release from Cincinnati Children's.
TransMedics' system technology perfuses organs during transport, as opposed to preserving them on ice, enabling the organs to travel farther distances. David Morales, MD, executive co-director of the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children’s, said the technology allowed the hospital to increase its retrieval area by 400%.
The procedure was performed in March and two months later the patient was out of the hospital "eating, walking, participating in rehabilitation and returning to normal life," the release said.