‘No-one else in the world is currently doing this'
NHS staff have become the first in the world to give teenagers new hearts that have been reanimated by a pioneering new machine. Medical professionals at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and Royal Papworth Hospital (RPH) in Cambridge collaborated on the ground-breaking treatment, which successfully saved the lives of six young people in 2020. The revolutionary new method – which is known as Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) – uses donated hearts which are kept beating outside a human body until they are needed for transplantation. Historically, donated hearts have come from people who are “brain-dead”, but whose hearts continue to beat, which limits the scope for the number of transplants possible. DCD not only allows more hearts to be used, it also enables them to be transported further and grants medical professionals more time. While the innovative technique was first performed in Europe in 2015, it was – until recently – only possible amongst adult patients.
The collaboration between RPH and GOSH represents a world-first for the DCD approach in relation to young people, however.
Marius Berman, consultant cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at the RPH, said: “No-one else in the world is currently doing this.
“It’s been an incredible multi-institutional and multidisciplinary team effort to make this possible, involving everyone from the specialist nurses in organ donation and retrieval, transplant co-ordinators, physicians and surgeons.
“Above all, none of this would be possible without the generosity of every donor and their families.”
Jacob Simmonds, consultant cardiologist and transplant physician at GOSH, echoed Dr Berman’s comments.
“In early 2020 we had more children at GOSH on the transplant list than I’d ever seen in my 16 years working at the hospital.
“Every day a child waits there is a bigger likelihood that they may get too ill even for transplantation, or worse.”
He added: “Although medical advances have come far, for some children with heart failure an organ donation is truly their only hope.”
The DCD heart programme has created more opportunities for donation, essentially doubling the number of transplants done at GOSH in eligible patients weighing more than 44lb (20kg), he said.
“It’s game-changing and work is already under way to make the technique suitable for our much younger and smaller patients.
“Ultimately, though, this still relies on families having conversations around their organ donation wishes, and then of course the bravery to consider making this precious, life-saving gift at a time of unimaginable tragedy.“
The UK still suffers from a shortage of suitable organ donors, which means that the number of children who might benefit from organ transplantation exceeds the number of organs available.
Fifteen-year-old Anna Hadley was the first patient to receive a DCD heart as a result of the collaboration.
The teenager was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy after collapsing during a PE class two months earlier.
Her father said: “After weighing up the potential risks and benefits of the DCD heart transplant with a more conventional one, we realised that there was only one choice, and we’re so glad we made it.
“Five days after the transplant, Anna was walking up and down the corridors, chatting away and high-fiving staff. It was incredible.”
Source: The i
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