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How do they know that the dead heart will not die again? Do they repair it before transplant ? Also shouldn't the heart be from an equally aged human?

intricatedetail 6y ago
The heart fills in a questionnaire using cut off aortas as bloody limbs.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
  This comment hurts the signal-to-noise ratio of this site.
  - slovette 6y ago
    This is probably THE most HN comment I’ve ever seen.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
CapriciousCptl 6y ago
Broadly speaking, two types of death are recognized with organ donation. Brain death, where there's no brain function at all and cardiac death, where there's no cardiopulmonary function. Brain death in isolation generally provides the most viable organs, since it minimizes so-called "warm ischemia" time, which is the time that the organs are warm and without viable blood flow. However, sometimes patients don't meet brain death criteria strictly, or they do but the donor next of kin decides to donate after cardiac death (actually, the next of kin/family determines what the donor would have wanted and there is a strict legal/ethical precedence on what opinions count). In those cases, cardiac death is initiated by stopping life support and waiting 2-10 minutes after "death" to initiate organ harvest. So, it's not that the heart caused death, it's just that it stopped beating, generally, due to lack of oxygen. Which means some of its cells certainly died, but by minimizing the warm ischemia time (by hooking up to a kind of life-support machine), that damage can be limited. Patients do not have to matched strictly by age. Anatomically-speaking, body-size is the most important criterion. Obviously, matching needs to happen on antibodies/rejection and several other factors as well.
jl6 6y ago
There is always a risk that the grafted organ may fail or be rejected or even bring new problems with it (e.g. smokers can donate lungs). But the recipients are typically gravely ill, and an imperfect donor organ may provide longer or higher quality life than doing nothing. Sone transplantees go on to live full lives for many decades. Others might need a retransplant. But while complications may occur, the fact transplantation works at all is a minor miracle that we should celebrate. Some patients die on the waiting list. If you haven’t already, please register to donate your organs. It costs you nothing.
- aksss 6y ago
  Fascinating about the smoker lungs. I wonder if a non-smoker with aged smoker lungs ever tastes “smoke”/tobacco in the subsequent weeks/months. So many questions.

intricatedetail 6y ago

The heart fills in a questionnaire using cut off aortas as bloody limbs.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
This comment hurts the signal-to-noise ratio of this site.
- slovette 6y ago
  This is probably THE most HN comment I’ve ever seen.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

CapriciousCptl 6y ago

Broadly speaking, two types of death are recognized with organ donation. Brain death, where there's no brain function at all and cardiac death, where there's no cardiopulmonary function. Brain death in isolation generally provides the most viable organs, since it minimizes so-called "warm ischemia" time, which is the time that the organs are warm and without viable blood flow. However, sometimes patients don't meet brain death criteria strictly, or they do but the donor next of kin decides to donate after cardiac death (actually, the next of kin/family determines what the donor would have wanted and there is a strict legal/ethical precedence on what opinions count). In those cases, cardiac death is initiated by stopping life support and waiting 2-10 minutes after "death" to initiate organ harvest. So, it's not that the heart caused death, it's just that it stopped beating, generally, due to lack of oxygen. Which means some of its cells certainly died, but by minimizing the warm ischemia time (by hooking up to a kind of life-support machine), that damage can be limited. Patients do not have to matched strictly by age. Anatomically-speaking, body-size is the most important criterion. Obviously, matching needs to happen on antibodies/rejection and several other factors as well.

jl6 6y ago

There is always a risk that the grafted organ may fail or be rejected or even bring new problems with it (e.g. smokers can donate lungs). But the recipients are typically gravely ill, and an imperfect donor organ may provide longer or higher quality life than doing nothing. Sone transplantees go on to live full lives for many decades. Others might need a retransplant. But while complications may occur, the fact transplantation works at all is a minor miracle that we should celebrate. Some patients die on the waiting list. If you haven’t already, please register to donate your organs. It costs you nothing.

aksss 6y ago
Fascinating about the smoker lungs. I wonder if a non-smoker with aged smoker lungs ever tastes “smoke”/tobacco in the subsequent weeks/months. So many questions.