Ex Vivo Heart Perfusion Study

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Evaluation of Hypothermic Oxygenated Perfusion (HOP) Ex-Vivo Heart Perfusion to Expand the Donor Pool and Improve Transplant Outcomes

  • IRAS ID

    253506

  • Contact name

    John Dark

  • Contact email

    john.dark@newcastle.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    BH149192, Reference Number

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    1 years, 11 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    Many hearts kindly offered for transplant are not used routinely as there is concern about how well they may work following a difficult transplant operation. The purpose of the project is to improve our understanding of the impact of machine perfusion, at low temperature, but with blood containing oxygen, a method which mimics the natural blood supplied from a beating heart to itself, on heart health, in comparison with presently utilised cold preservation in an ice bath. We hope to be able to:
    • Extend the acceptable duration of heart preservation prior to transplant
    • Develop tests so that we can better assess heart health and quality prior to transplantation
    • Extend these investigations to hearts donated after circulatory death, a field in which the UK leads the world, but which currently depends on prohibitively expenive American technology

    In addition, the hearts clinically being transplanted under the current practice will be recruited as control group. We will take samples from and assess these hearts before and after transplantation, and compare the results against those from the hearts, which are perfused by the machine, in the research group.

    The results of this research will be used to improve safety while also reducing the amount of time patients spend on 'waiting lists' prior to transplantation.

  • REC name

    North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    19/NE/0132

  • Date of REC Opinion

    24 May 2019

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion