EXVIVO offers high hopes for new transplant technology

Those waiting for lung transplants have high hopes for new technology

I am very pleased to post this article as I have had the pleasure of following the clinical trials from the beginning. Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, who lead the development of the Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System is the surgeon who performed my  lung transplant 11 years ago. You can read more here about this medical breakthrough that is having a global impact in saving lives.

The first successful transplants after ex vivo perfusion were done in Sweden in 2001, and the system under clinical trials in the U.S. was developed by a research group in Toronto in 2008. The Toronto group, said Love, has since done about 90 transplants of lungs that otherwise would have been thrown out. Lungs treated with the ex vivo technique now account for about 20% of their transplants, and the results are promising.

By Jennifer Laaser of the Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Told he had less than a year to live, Trey Schwab, then the assistant men's basketball coach at Marquette University, hung on for 26 months before the right set of lungs became available for transplant in 2004.

When his surgeon opened him up and saw his lungs, Schwab recalled, the doctor said he only would have lasted another few weeks.

For Patricia Nichols, the wait isn't over. Nichols, 53, of Milwaukee, has been on the transplant list for about a year, and is still waiting.

Now, a technology called ex vivo lung perfusion is nearing the end of clinical trials in the United States, and may shorten waits for transplanted lungs. This technology is on its way to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa in the laboratory of surgeon Robert Love.

Wait times for lung transplants are long — in large part because only a small fraction of the lungs offered for donation are deemed good enough to give to a patient.

"Twenty percent," said Nichols. "That's so few."

Using the ex vivo technology, said Love, "I expect that would increase to 50%."

Love, chief of cardiac surgery at Froedtert, recently received an ex vivo perfusion system for research use. Froedtert hopes to use the technology clinically as soon as it is FDA-approved.

The process involves putting lungs that have been removed from a donor on a machine that ventilates them and circulates a blood replacement fluid called perfusate, Love said.

This helps surgeons use lungs that would otherwise be discarded, because they can check that the lungs function properly before transplanting them. They can monitor how well the lungs expand, and how well they transfer oxygen to the perfusate.

Surgeons also can treat the lungs before they're transplanted.

"It's a living, personalized medicine for the set of lungs," Love said.

Treating lungs on the ex vivo perfusion machine, he explained, can help doctors remove extra fluid from them. It also gives them a chance to treat the lungs with antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and antivirals before transplantation.

Nilto De Oliveira, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison medical school and a surgeon, has done research on ex vivo perfusion and likened the ex vivo equipment to "a repair center for organs."

The first successful transplants after ex vivo perfusion were done in Sweden in 2001, and the system under clinical trials in the U.S. was developed by a research group in Toronto in 2008.

The Toronto group, said Love, has since done about 90 transplants of lungs that otherwise would have been thrown out. Lungs treated with the ex vivo technique now account for about 20% of their transplants, and the results are promising.

"Their results with these lungs are really the same as with the standard lung transplant," he said.

This increase in the number of lungs available could help shorten the wait times for transplants, and perhaps reduce the number of patients who die each year on the wait list.

"To me as a recipient, that's huge, and I know that it's huge to the thousands of people that are waiting," said Schwab.

Nichols said that if she were offered lungs rehabilitated with the ex vivo technique, she'd jump at the chance.

"If there was an opportunity," she said, "I would say yes for sure."

Love, who is on the FDA safety monitoring board for the U.S. clinical trial, is optimistic the ex vivo technology will be approved for wide use before long. But, he said, there's still work to be done, which is why his lab got an ex vivo system for research purposes.

Surgeons also are exploring the possibility of using gene therapy to help repair the lungs before transplant. In the future, said Love, treating lungs on the ex vivo system might help reduce the risk of chronic rejection, or make it possible to use lungs from patients who die at home rather than in the hospital.

De Oliveira said he thinks that using these treatments to reduce chronic rejection is a "huge jump," but is still optimistic about using ex vivo perfusion to improve donor lungs.

"I think the potential for the technique is endless," he said.

But technology is only part of the solution when it comes to finding enough lungs — and the right lungs — to meet the needs of those on the transplant waiting lists.

The rest comes down to getting people to register as donors, especially among minority groups. African-Americans comprise about 20% of transplant recipients, but only 15% of donors, though the numbers vary by organ.

"We have to get the word out about people signing up to be donors, especially African-Americans," said Nichols, who is African-American.

Milwaukee County has a particularly low donor registration rate, said Schwab, who is now the outreach coordinator at the UW Organ and Tissue Donation program and worked to develop Wisconsin's online donor registration system.

Nichols noted it only takes a few minutes to register. And for those on the fence, she suggested asking themselves, "What if this were somebody that I love that needed this?"

Because, she said, "it is somebody's loved one."

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

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Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System boosts lung donor pool

As we approach the July 1st Canada Day weekend we remember to celebrate the blessings and bounties our Nation has given us. For me its the new life I was given by a lung transplant eleven years ago, thanks to my donor and Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, at Toronto General Hospital. This recent article in The Toronto Star highlights his achievements.

Toronto lung transplant surgeon leading innovations to boost donor organ pool

“I think the impact of this will be changing the 15 per cent world utilization (for donated lungs) to 50 per cent. That is more than tripling the number of lung transplants done around the world,” Keshavjee says. “This came from here and it’s going to impact the world.”

By: Theresa Boyle Health, 

The Toronto Star

Toronto surgeon Dr. Shaf Keshavjee’s innovations are transforming how lung transplants are done. He has lead the development of the Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System, which treats and improves high-risk donor lungs so they can be safely used for transplant.

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, seen in the hall of Toronto General Hospital immediately after he performed a double-lung transplant in February, has received the Order of Ontario for his innovative work in his field.

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee apologizes as his BlackBerry keeps buzzing. He is receiving emails from the Trillium Gift of Life Network, Ontario’s organ and tissue donation agency.

They are offering him a pair of lungs — organs from an individual whose identity must be kept secret for ethical reasons, and likely the victim of a recent accident, head injury or brain hemorrhage — from some undisclosed location in Canada.

PHOTOS: Toronto doctor transforming world of transplants

Keshavjee, director of the Lung Transplant Program at Toronto General Hospital, part of the University Health Network, peers closely at the screen of the mobile device. He is looking at an x-ray of the organs. The image is tiny, but to his trained eye, he can tell the organs are less than perfect.

“There is some abnormality because there is some lightness to it,” he says, pointing to a couple of minuscule white dots.

The lungs are the most fragile of all the organs and injuries to this pair may have been sustained during whatever tragedy led to the donor’s brain death. Or after, when resuscitation attempts were made. Or even after that, when the body was kept alive on life support.

Typically, such damaged lungs would not be considered for transplant. Indeed, an average of only 15 per cent of donated lungs end up being used worldwide.

But because of innovations led by Keshavjee, Toronto General is now able to use 40 per cent of the lungs offered. And Keshavjee is working to raise that number.

For his efforts, he was recently recognized with the Order of Ontario and two Queen’s Jubilee medals. His accomplishments are indeed an Ontario success story. His innovations are transforming lung transplant surgery around the world.

Keshavjee types a response on his BlackBerry, telling Trillium he will take the lungs.

“Smartphones have made it a lot easier. I can do this lying in my bed in the middle of the night. And I do,” he says.

So begins the complex process that will ultimately lead to someone who is dying of lung disease getting a transplant.

There are more than 80 Ontarians waiting for either a lung or a heart-lung transplant. About 20 per cent of them will die on the waiting list.

For Keshavjee, who has done about 400 lung transplants, this is just another day at the office.

“I will have a recipient ready tonight at midnight to start fitting the lungs in,” says the 51-year-old transplant surgeon who is now planning to work into the next day.

This is only one of Keshavjee’s jobs. He is also surgeon-in-chief at the University Health Network, a researcher, medical school professor and thoracic surgeon who does elective surgery, mostly on lung cancer patients.

His biggest claim to fame is leading the development of the Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System (ex vivo means outside the body), which treats and improves high-risk donor lungs so they can be safely used for transplant.

A couple of weeks after the initial interview, Keshavjee allows a reporter and photographer to tag along to see how the system works.

A pair of lungs arrives at the hospital in a blue Coleman cooler at 10:30 a.m. on a Monday. They were harvested from an anonymous donor’s body, somewhere in Canada, six hours earlier.

While a family somewhere in Canada grieves for the loss of the donor, a man in his 60s with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is being prepped for transplant surgery. He’s excited and jittery, too nervous to be interviewed by a reporter.

Besides, it’s difficult to talk. He needs 100 per cent oxygen at all times just to stay alive.

At this point, it’s not certain whether the transplant will even go ahead. The donor lungs are in bad shape, inflamed and full of fluid.

The lungs arrive in operating room 18, the organ regeneration laboratory, on the second floor of the hospital. A team of about six medical professionals is already assembled. They include surgeons, nurses and perfusion specialists who operate the XVIVO system.

There are also research fellows from Hong Kong, Chile, Spain and Brazil. Professionals from every major transplant center around the world have come through the hospital to learn the technique.

The lungs are removed from the cooler and placed into a bucket of ice. A tube is attached to the pulmonary artery, which normally delivers blood to the lung from the heart. Another tube is sewn to a vein that normally drains blood out of the lung.

The organs are then moved to a steel table in the center  of the room atop of which sits the XVIVO device. Also known as “the bubble,” it resembles a glass-domed cake plate.

Here, the lungs are hooked up to a circuit that includes a ventilator and heart-lung machine, which pumps a preservation solution into them. The solution, made of low-potassium dextran, was initially developed by Keshavjee and later perfected by others.

As the lungs are brought back up to body temperature, they are healed with a type of anti-inflammatory therapy, also developed by Keshavjee, which makes them less prone to malfunction.

Like something out of a science fiction novel, the lungs eventually begin inflating and deflating. The disembodied organs are alive, breathing on their own.

“It’s something I wouldn’t have imagined seeing in my lifetime,” says Keshavjee, who still marvels at the accomplishment.

Keshavjee bustles around the hospital while the lungs recover on the XVIVO system. He has a couple of meetings, a clinic with cancer patients and an interview with a candidate for a nurse navigator position.

He continuously checks on the lungs, calling the OR, visiting in person and even checking in via Skype on an iPad.

The XVIVO team updates him with results of ongoing tests. They assess the lungs’ function with blood gases, x-rays and bronchoscopies. They check the resistance to the flow of fluid through the lungs and whether the organs are becoming less stiff.

They also pump them with anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics.

The lungs continue to improve and at the four-hour mark, Keshavjee makes the call. The surgery can go ahead.

Another benefit of the XVIVO system is that it allows doctors to know how lungs will function before they are transplanted, thereby reducing the risk of death.

“I already know that the lungs are going to work before I even start the operation. That is transformative. Before, you would find out after,” Keshavjee says.

He continues with his other duties around the hospital, while another operating room is made ready for the transplant surgery and the patient is told the good news.

Seven hours after the lungs arrived at the hospital, the transplant begins.

The room is filled with music from Keshavjee’s iPod: Hedley, Florence and the Machine, Lady Gaga. His 15-year-old daughter’s selection.

In Keshavjee’s tool kit are more than 100 sterilized surgical instruments, including different sizes of clamps, forceps, scissors and what look like wrenches. There are even power tools.

Keshavjee opens the patient’s chest horizontally using an electric sternum saw so that it lifts like the hood of a car.

He removes and replaces the lungs one at a time. When the first one comes out, the signs of disease are apparent. It is bright red with inflammation and black lines run through it.

It takes the surgeon only 45 minutes to sew in each new lung. He expertly sutures them to the patient’s bronchus, pulmonary artery and veins, attaching them to the heart.

Each lung is slowly re-perfused with the patient’s own blood. Within minutes, the thousands of tiny blood vessels in the organs fill.

The right lung is done first. It inflates as it fills for the first time with the transplant patient’s own breath of air.

“When you stop to think about what we are doing, it is pretty amazing,” Keshavjee exclaims.

Before the patient is sewn up, samples of his new lungs are taken for research.

Keshavjee has big plans to take the technology even further by modifying transplanted lungs with gene therapy and stem cell therapy so they that patients don’t need to take anti-rejection drugs. Ultimately, he hopes to be able to build new lungs.

“Can you strip all the cells out of it, keep the skeleton, the scaffold and then take your bone marrow, your stems cells and build a lung that is you?”

Twelve hours after the surgery, the patient is removed from the ventilator. Where he had difficulty breathing with oxygen support before, he is now easily breathing on his own.

The day after the surgery, he is out of his bed and able to eat a meal of clear fluids.

One of the first things that strikes the patient is that he can get through a meal without have to stop for a break to catch his breath.

“It’s just a simple thing, but he can’t recall when he was last able to do that,” Keshavjee says.

Without the transplant and the ability to salvage lungs that were otherwise unusable, there was a more than 50 per cent chance the man would have died within the year.

The Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System has saved this man and has the potential to save many more lives as other countries adopt it. There are plans to use it for other organs, aside from lungs, as well.

“I think the impact of this will be changing the 15 per cent world utilization (for donated lungs) to 50 per cent. That is more than tripling the number of lung transplants done around the world,” Keshavjee says.

“This came from here and it’s going to impact the world.”

In Ontario, you can register your consent to be an organ and tissue donor online at beadonor.ca.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Donor Registration Links 

Experience with the first 50 ex vivo lung perfusions in clinical transplantation

J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2012;144:1200-1207
© 2012 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery 

Cardiothoracic Transplantation

Experience with the first 50 ex vivo lung perfusions in clinical transplantation
Marcelo Cypel, MD, MSc, Jonathan C. Yeung, MD, PhD, Tiago Machuca, MD, Manyin Chen, MD, Lianne G. Singer, MD,Kazuhiro Yasufuku, MD, PhD, Marc de Perrot, MD, MSc, Andrew Pierre, MD, MSc, Thomas K. Waddell, MD, PhD,Shaf Keshavjee, MD, MSc^_*
Toronto Lung Transplant Program, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Read at the 92nd Annual Meeting of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery, San Francisco, California, April 28-May 2, 2012.

Received for publication April 25, 2012; revisions received July 8, 2012; accepted for publication August 1, 2012.
^_* Address for reprints: Shaf Keshavjee, MD, MSc, Toronto Lung Transplant Program, Toronto General Hospital, 200 Elizabeth St, 9N946, Toronto, ON, Canada. (Email:shaf.keshavjee@uhn.ca).

Objective: Normothermic ex vivo lung perfusion is a novel method to evaluate and improve the function of injured donor lungs. We reviewed our experience with 50 consecutive transplants after ex vivo lung perfusion.

Methods: A retrospective study using prospectively collected data was performed. High-risk brain death donor lungs (defined as PaO ₂/FIO ₂ <300 mm Hg or lungs with radiographic or clinical findings of pulmonary edema) and lungs from cardiac death donors were subjected to 4 to 6 hours of ex vivo lung perfusion. Lungs that achieved stable airway and vascular pressures and PaO ₂/FIO ₂ greater than 400 mm Hg during ex vivo lung perfusion were transplanted. The primary end point was the incidence of primary graft dysfunction grade 3 at 72 hours after transplantation. End points were compared with lung transplants not treated with ex vivo lung perfusion (controls).

Results: A total of 317 lung transplants were performed during the study period (39 months). Fifty-eight ex vivo lung perfusion procedures were performed, resulting in 50 transplants (86% use). Of these, 22 were from cardiac death donors and 28 were from brain death donors. The mean donor PaO ₂/FIO ₂ was 334 mm Hg in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 452 mm Hg in the control group (P = .0001). The incidence of primary graft dysfunction grade 3 at 72 hours was 2% in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 8.5% in the control group (P = .14). One patient (2%) in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 7 patients (2.7%) in the control group required extracorporeal lung support for primary graft dysfunction (P = 1.00). The median time to extubation, intensive care unit stay, and hospital length of stay were 2, 4, and 20 days, respectively, in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 2, 4, and 23 days, respectively, in the control group (P > .05). Thirty-day mortality (4% in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 3.5% in the control group, P = 1.00) and 1-year survival (87% in the ex vivo lung perfusion group and 86% in the control group, P = 1.00) were similar in both groups.

Conclusions: Transplantation of high-risk donor lungs after 4 to 6 hours of ex vivo lung perfusion is safe, and outcomes are similar to those of conventional transplants. Ex vivo lung perfusion improved our center use of donor lungs, accounting for 20% of our current lung transplant activity.

“You Have the Power to Donate Life – Sign-up today! Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Canada Ontario, Canada - British Columbia, other Canadian provinces

United States, organdonor.gov

United Kingdom, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee presents EXVIVO Lung Perfusion system at TEDMED

TEDMED is one of the most prestigious annual events where leaders in the medical field discuss their ideas and I'm pleased to see that Dr. Shaf Keshavjee was an invited speaker. The first speaker of the event, he followed double-lung transplant recipient soprano Charity Tillemann-Dick's opening song “I Could Have Danced All Night” Dr. Keshavjee is my lung transplant surgeon and it's been my privilege to see the development of the Toronto EXVIVO Lung Perfusion System from it's early beginnings. Click here for a video of the system.

TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital. TMED was held Oct 26-29 in San Diego.

By Katherine Hobson The Wall Street Journal Blogs

Last night at view video, Shaf Keshavjee, director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, asked for volunteers to come onstage and touch a breathing pig lung, which was hooked up to a machine that kept it essentially “alive.”

Martha Stewart, seated up front, raised her hand, so minutes later she — and a handful of other conference participants — had donned rubber gloves and were grasping the lung as the machine helped it “breathe.” (We halfway expected her to offer up a really good offal recipe to the crowd.)

The tool Keshavjee had brought with him was essentially a mini heart-lung machine but in reverse. It permits the lung to stay at room temperature and function as usual — removing carbon dioxide from blood (a cellular solution, in this demonstration) and adding oxygen. When a human lung retrieved from a deceased donor is hooked up to the machine, physicians get the luxury of time to assess its condition and then treat it using targeted methods, including gene and cellular therapy, before transplanting it into the recipient. At that point, it’s become a “super organ,” as Keshavjee says.

Using conventional methods, transplanted lungs are cooled to slow deterioration and then transplanted, with little time to assess their condition or repair damage. Keshavjee says this new method has allowed some 30 patients to receive donated and repaired lungs that wouldn’t have ordinarily been used.

He says the holy grail for the pre-op repair process would be to treat donated lungs while they’re outside the body to avoid rejection by the host, to “make it like self.”

More from TEDMED:
pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com

Katherine Hobson on double-lung transplant recipient soprano Charity Tillemann-Dick's opening song “I Could Have Danced All Night”

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Register to be a donor in Ontario at Trillium Gift of Life Network NEW for Ontario: recycleMe.org - Learn The Ins & Outs Of Organ And Tissue Donation. Register Today! For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save or enhance the lives of up to fifty people with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants (see allotransplantation). One tissue donor can help by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves

Has your life been saved by an organ transplant? "Pay it forward" and help spread the word about the need for organ donation - In the U.S. another person is added to the national transplant waiting list every 11 minutes and 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant. Organs can save lives, corneas renew vision, and tissue may help to restore someone's ability to walk, run or move freely without pain. Life Begins with You

Donated Lungs Breathing Outside the Body (Video)

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee told me that as of June 4th they have now performed eleven very successful lung transplants using this new Toronto Exvivo technique which means that eleven more patients are alive because they could use this novel strategy to assess and treat donor lungs. All patients are doing very well and this bodes well for the future by increasing the number of donor lungs available for transplant and getting patients off waiting lists. Dr. Keshavjee also said that they have already taught this EXVIVO technique to fifteen lung transplant surgical teams worldwide and surgeons at the Harefield-Brompton Hospital in the UK have recently performed their first successful exvivo lung transplant using the Toronto technique.

By Drew Halley Singularity Hub Blog

Pop quiz! What’s weirder than dead organs sitting around in glass jars? Live organs moving around in glass domes.

For patients with late-stage respiratory diseases, finding a new pair of lungs can be… well, about as hard as it sounds. Currently, about four out of five lung donations are rejected for use, as they don’t fit the criteria required for a safe transplant. Keeping an organ alive outside the body is tricky stuff, especially long enough to patch it up. But what if doctors had enough time to repair donated organs that were initially unfit for transplant?

For the first time, doctors at Toronto General Hospital have used what is called the XVIVO Lung Perfusion System to repair donated lungs. Using a ventilator, pump and filter, the new technique can keep lungs breathing in a glass dome for up to 12 hours following donation. This time window allows doctors to better assess the potential of the organs for transplant, or to repair damaged lungs. Today, only 25% of patients can find a lung donation match. Keeping the lungs alive for a longer period of time improves those odds, increasing lungs’ chances of being used by as much as 5 to 10 times.

In case you didn’t catch that, lungs are breathing in a glass dome. Creepy? You bet. Check it out yourself:


The lungs are kept alive at 37°C, the same temperature as your body. Vitrolife, an international biotech group, worked with Swedish doctor Stig Steen to develop a bloodless solution that allows the functionality of lungs to be tested prior to transplant. Called Steen Solution, the fluid is rich in nutrients, oxygen, proteins, and all that good stuff that keeps your lungs happy and healthy. By running the solution through the lungs, doctors can assess how well they exchange gasses, their ability to maintain normal body temperature, and a whole host of diagnostic criteria that take valuable time to assess.

Four* patients have received transplants using the technique to date, and all have been successful. Andy Dykstra was is the only successful recipient whose new lungs were unfit for transplant until the XVIVO system was used to repair them (the other three donations met criteria, but were further repaired prior to surgery). Andy could breathe without artificial help just four days following the transplant, and was discharged from the hospital after only twelve days. Not too shabby for a complete lung switch-out.

Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, Director of the Lung Transplant Program in Toronto, put the technique in context: “Many more donor lungs which we could not have used before can now potentially be used safely, and it sets the stage for more sophisticated molecular and cellular repair techniques to be applied in the Toronto XVIVO Perfusion System so that transplant outcomes can be further improved. The potential exists to immunologically pre-prepare the organ before it even sees the recipient’s immune system.”

Individuals with cystic fibrosis and emphysema are often at risk of lung failure during the later stages of their disease. But finding a new pair of lungs is no easy feat. Normally, lungs are cooled after donation to preserve the organs prior to transplant. But the cooling process slows cellular metabolism, which inhibits active repair strategies before transplantation. Keeping them at body temperature allows more repair work to be done, improving the chances of a successful transplant.

With an active imagination, you can pretty much run wild with this one. Maybe someday, these technologies will find a use without the need for organ donation. Imagine receiving artificial respiration while your lungs were removed, repaired, and inserted back into your body. Think of it like a tune-up for your body. I, for one, would love to see a big room full of lung donations pumping away in little domes. Patients could pick their favorite transplant organ, sort of like choosing your lobster at a seafood restaurant. Well, okay… maybe not.

Regardless, this technique creates new options for lung repair and will drastically increase the success rate of donated lungs. All told, that’s pretty cool.

*As of June 4th eleven patients have received lungs that were repaired and reconditioned by the EXVIVO process.

You can find the press release about the XVIVO system here.

“You Have the Power to Save Lives – Sign Your Donor Card & Tell Your Loved Ones of Your Decision”

Register to be a donor in Ontario or Download Donor Cards from Trillium Gift of Life Network
For other Canadian provinces click here

In the United States, be sure to find out how to register in your state at ShareYourLife.org or Download Donor Cards from OrganDonor.Gov

In Great Britain, register at NHS Organ Donor Register

In Australia, register at Australian Organ Donor Register

Your generosity can save up to eight lives with heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, pancreas and small intestine transplants. One tissue donor can help up to 100 other people by donating skin, corneas, bone, tendon, ligaments and heart valves