Increasing the transplant donor pool by fixing lungs outside of the body

Record ID: 103129

  • Title: Increasing the transplant donor pool by fixing lungs outside of the body
  • Date: 17th May 2016
  • Summary: ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (English) VARUN PURI, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CARDIOTHORACIC SURGERY, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY. SAYING: "The lungs in the body are performing a function, they are providing oxygen to the body and they are removing carbon dioxide, they are performing gas exchange, thus there is some degree of stress on the lungs, when they are in the box or the circuit there is really no function they are expected to perform."
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2016 19:46
  • Keywords: lung lung transplant transplantation smoking lung disease clinical trial Washignton University
  • Location: ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, UNITED STATES
  • City: ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA0094I7634R
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The XPS by XVIVO Perfusion, described as 'the box', is currently under assessment in a multi-institutional clinical trial that aims to see if the technology could increase the donor pool by reconditioning marginal lungs not suitable for transplant. It has been cleared for use in Europe and Canada and was approved for use in clinical trials by the Food & Drug Administration in the United States as a Humanitarian Use Device.
    Michele Coleman credits 'the box' with saving her life. An ex smoker, she was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD, a lung disease with no cure.
    "You don't want to but you kind of lose hope because when you are sick like that you know how fast you are going downhill. When I got the call in November (2015), I just thought 'you've got to be kidding me' because I never thought it would happen," Coleman said.
    What happened was Coleman's doctors asked if she wanted to participate in a clinical trial - explaining that she would receive donor lungs that needed to take an out of body detour for reconditioning before her transplant.
    "It's scary but anything that they could give me was going to be better than I had and actually I figured I wouldn't make it to the end of the year," she said.
    The machine is comprised of a ventilator for breathing and a bypass machine to perfuse the organs with a drug-laden solution aimed at improving function.
    In many ways the device mimic's the human body but with one major difference.
    "The lungs in the body are performing a function, they are providing oxygen to the body and they are removing carbon dioxide, they are performing gas exchange, thus there is some degree of stress on the lungs, when they are in the box or on the circuit there is really no function they are expected to perform," said Puri adding that it gives them time to reboot and heal.
    The statistics for lung transplantation are grim. Less than 20 percent of donor lungs are currently considered suitable for transplant, and that's part of the reason why up to 25 percent of candidates die waiting for a transplant. After receiving donor lungs just over half will survive 5 years.
    The ex vivo lung circuit addresses the first two stats by potentially increasing the donor pool and doctors say that with further research it could increase survival rates as well.
    "I am sure in the future we will be able to do things like gene therapy to the lungs in a controlled environment or utilizing specific anti-inflammatory agents to prevent short term and long term rejection of organs," said Puri.
    As for Michele Coleman she's not overly concerned with statistics. So far, she's defied them.
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