According to Matthew Bacchetta’s team at Columbia University, a new technique can apparently regenerate lungs considered too damaged to be transplanted, which represent 80% of the lungs removed from donors. Their study published in Nature Communications shows that a cross-circulation technique enables lungs to be kept outside the body for 36 hours, giving doctors time to “rehabilitate” them. Currently, doctors have 6 hours between removal and transplantation. Bacchetta wants to extend the survival time of organs outside the body to “several days or even weeks”. This “organ recovery” could be used for other organs, such as the heart, kidneys and liver. However, further studies are needed to confirm the viability of ‘regenerated’ organs, the safety of the method and the response of lungs to immunosuppressants administered after transplantation.
Medical press (7/05/2019)