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New procedure promises to be a breakthrough in lung transplants

Submitted by Bob-45 on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 14:46

Health

By Shari Roan

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) For decades, heart and lung transplant surgeons have followed a strict directive: Get the donor organ into the recipient as soon as possible.

That practice may be changing. In a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers said both the number of donor lungs and successful transplants may be dramatically increased by treating the organs on a perfusion machine for several hours before transplantation.

The technique marks a paradigm shift in the transplantation field, experts said. About 85% of lungs made available for donation are not used because of tissue damage that potentially could be repaired with perfusion or other techniques.

"We won't just transplant an organ," said Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, senior author of the study and director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program at Toronto General Hospital. "We will diagnose it, fix it, make it OK and then transplant it."
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