imming, a cannula is inserted into the superior vena cava. Through this cannula, the preservation media can be pumped in.What if this scenario were different? What if doctors were able to preserve the donor heart and keep it viable outside the body for up to 24 hours instead of only four hours? If this were possible, the heart in Florida could have been transported across the country to Oregon where the perfect recipient waited. The biochemical composition of the preservation media for hearts during the transplant delay is drastically important for prolonging the viability of the organ. If a media can be developed that could preserve the heart for longer periods of time, many lives could be saved as a result.Another benefit of this increase in time is that it would allow doctors the time to better prepare themselves for the lengthy operation. The accidents that render people brain-dead often occur at night or in the early morning. Presently, as soon as a donor organ becomes available, doctors must immediately go to work at transplanting it. This extremely intricate and intense operation takes a long time to complete. If the transplanting doctor is exhausted from working a long day, the increase in duration would allow him enough time to get some much needed rest so he can perform the operation under the best possible circumstances.Experiments have been conducted that studied the effects of preserving excised hearts by adding several compounds to the media in which the organ is being stored. The most successful of these compounds are pyruvate and a pyruvate containing compound known as perfluoroperhydrophenanthrene-egg yolk phospholipid (APE-LM). It was determined that adding pyruvate to the media improved postpreservation cardiac function while adding glucose had little or no effect. To test the function of these two intermediates, rabbit hearts were excised and preserved for an average of 24.5 1 0.2 hours on a preservation apparatus be...
