Evaluation of current organ preservation methods for heart-lung transplantation

Successful extended pulmonary preservation has now been reported, however, after heart-lung maintenance in an autoperfused system, following pulmonary artery flushing, and after donor organ cooling by means of extracorporeal circulation. Although these techniques appear to have promise in meeting the need of providing extended pulmonary preservation, it is not clear which method affords optimal protection. This study was designed to evaluate these methods in a large animal model. From these experimental data it appears that donor core-cooling provides superior acute graft function in the bovine model. The technical simplicity of the technique also suggests that core-cooling may be the preferred method for distant heart-lung procurement.