For the first time in Illinois, surgeons have successfully taken a heart that stopped beating inside a patient and transplanted it into another person with the help of a new, science fictionlike device.
Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital announced Wednesday that they performed a heart transplant on Oct. 12 using a machine nicknamed “heart in a box.” It’s an advance that doctors hope will make more hearts available for transplant. About 3,400 people across the country are now waiting for heart transplants, including 182 in Illinois.
Usually, hearts are only considered for transplant if a donor suffers brain death, but the donor’s heart is still beating in their body, either on its own or with mechanical assistance. That can sometimes happen after a traumatic injury or drug overdose. In those cases, the heart is removed from the donor’s body and put on ice for transport to a recipient, which must occur within about four hours.
