A SYDNEY surgeon has successfully transplanted “dead” hearts into three patients, in a breakthrough that could dramatically boost the survival prospects of people with serious heart disease.

St Vincent’s Hospital’s Kumud Dhital has successfully used hearts that had stopped beating, in operations performed over the past few months.

The most recent was on Wednesday night.

Two patients, 57-year-old Sydney woman Michelle Gribilas and Sydney man Jan Damen, 40, fronted the media today, demonstrating their recovery from the groundbreaking procedure.

Researchers from St Vincent’s and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have managed to resuscitate hearts that had stopped beating more than half an hour earlier.

St Vincent’s said that until now, transplant units had relied solely on donor hearts from brain-dead patients whose hearts were still beating.

It said the use of hearts donated “after circulatory death” represented a “paradigm shift” in organ donation, heralding a major increase in the pool of available hearts.

Peter MacDonald, head of St Vincent’s Heart Transplant Unit, said it was a “timely breakthrough” three decades after the unit’s establishment.

“In all our years, our biggest hindrance has been the limited availability of donor organs,” Professor MacDonald said.

Dr Dhital said dead hearts had been used in the first wave of human heart transplants in the 1960s, with the donor and recipient in adjacent operating theatres.

“This co-location of donor and recipient is extremely rare in the current era, leading us to rely solely on brain-dead donors – until now.”.

The technique used a special preservation solution that works in conjunction with a “heart in a box” machine, known as the ex vivo organ care system.

Associate Professor Dhital told media today he “kicked the air” when the first surgery was successful. It was possible thanks to new technology, he said

more from source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/dead-heart-transplant-breakthrough-at-st-vincents-hospital/story-e6frg8y6-1227100833535