NHS doctors are reported to be the first in the world to end heart transplantation in children using organs restored by a modern device.
Historically, donor hearts have come from people who are brain dead but whose hearts are still beating, which limits the opportunity for the number of possible transmissions.
But the Sunday Times says surgeons from Papworth Royal Infirmary in Cambridgeshire have been able to make hearts start to beat again after they stop, and successfully insert them into children.
Doctors have used a heart-in-a-box device called the Organ Care System to bring the hearts back to life when they are removed from the donor.
The device reproduces the position of the human body.
As soon as a defibrillation pulse is used to beat the beating hearts again, they are kept warm and 1.5 liters of the donor’s blood is pumped through in a circle, and nourished.
Doctors can also regulate the heart rate with remote control if necessary.
The hearts were then moved to London for transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the newspaper reported.
The procedure has previously been tried in adults, but has now saved the lives of six British children aged 12 to 16 since February last year, all of whom were life-threatening.
On average, children have to wait two and a half hours longer than adults for hearts to be available.
This outbreak is expected to lead to a significant expansion in the number of donation cores available, reduce post-operative complications, overcome distance, increase referral survival rates and save hundreds of lives, the paper says. .
The first patient to benefit from the procedure was Anna Hadley, now 16, from Worcester, who had waited nearly two years for her heart transplant.
“I feel normal again. There’s nothing I can’t do now, ”she told the paper.
Dr John Forsythe, medical director for organ donation and transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “This new approach will save lives here and around the world.
“It means people can donate their hearts where it would not have been possible before, giving life to patients on the waiting list. ”