Research Projects -
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Heart Transplantation using Ex-vivo Heart Perfusion
Grant number：15K10215 2015.04 - 2018.03
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
KOTANI YASUHIRO, OH Hidemasa
Grant amount：\4680000 （ Direct expense: \3600000 、 Indirect expense：\1080000 ）
The shortage of donor pool remains a problem in heart transplantation. The alternative donor source is the non-heart beating donor: however, it is still unknown that how the heart function is recovered after the massive insult from the cardiac arrest and this makes difficult to use the heart from the non-heart beating donor. The purpose of this project is to see whether or not the heart is recovered from cardiac death.
We found that the heart can be recovered from cardiac death when the appropriate heart preservation is done by means of controlled reperfusion. Another key finding is that the heart can be evaluated before transplantation by ex-vivo apparatus. The blood test looking at lactate level is found to be a predict marker for adequate recovery. Taken together, our finding suggests that the heart from non-heart beating donor can be used for the heart transplantation when the heart is reperfused with appropriate manner.