National Taiwan University Hospital on Friday detailed the country’s first lung harvesting operation since the practice was legalized in 2017.
The landmark procedure took place last year, when surgeons were operating on a 37-year-old brain-dead organ donor, whose heart stopped beating due to acute myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, Hsu Hsao-hsun (徐紹勛), chief of the hospital’s cardiovascular surgery unit, told a news conference in Taipei.
Hsu, who led the transplant operation, declined to specify when the procedure took place, citing hospital protocol.
After an 11-minute effort to revive the patient failed, Hsu said he decided to proceed with the harvesting operation to save as many organs as possible.
The procedure was conducted without the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, as required under the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s guidelines for organ donation after circulatory death, he said.
According to the guidelines, doctors cannot proceed with organ harvesting until the heart has stopped beating for five minutes and the donor is pronounced dead.
The medical team managed to harvest the lungs and liver from the donor, which went to a patient at the hospital, and another at Taipei Veterans General Hospital respectively, Hsu said.
Since Taiwan began allowing organ donation after circulatory death at the end of 2017, about a dozen such donations have been conducted every year nationwide, or 10 percent of all donations, the hospital said.
The majority of harvested organs have been kidneys and livers, the hospital said, adding that it is difficult to preserve organs once the heart stops.
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