In this interview with MEDICA-tradefair.com, Professor Haverich describes the advantages of the Organ Care System, explains how the treatment works and reveals why these types of treatment should nevertheless remain the exception.
Professor Haverich, what exactly is the Organ Care System?
Prof. Axel Haverich: The Organ Care System (OCS) is used for the transport of donor organs – hearts or lungs – from the donor to the recipient hospital, while maintaining a near-physiologic and functioning state. What makes this system so unique is that the respective organ is supplied with blood, meaning it is kept in a living state. This means, a heart keeps on beating during the entire six to twelve hours it takes for transport. This system avoids Ischemia – the inadequate blood supply to an organ – used for the traditional organ preservation process in cold conditions. The system is slightly modified for lungs. During the transport, lungs are not only supplied with blood but also ventilated with oxygen. The OCS is able to maintain a near-physiologic state of the donor organ for many hours.
You were recently successful in treating pneumonia in the OCS. How exactly did you do this?
Haverich: We initially administered this treatment in a large animal model. We used the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium to cause pneumonia in a pig. Common in patients with cystic fibrosis, this bacterium is multidrug-resistant and the only effective antibiotics are no longer clinically approved due to their many side effects. Once this bacterium impacts the patient, it is extremely difficult to treat with antibiotics. We would have had no other treatment options in this case.
The advantage of an OCS is that we can administer a higher dose of the antibiotic to the organ, which would otherwise have severe adverse effects on the liver, kidneys, central nervous system and blood. What's more, we are able to do this at temperatures where the antibiotics work better, at about 40 degrees Celsius. The Organ Care System enables us to treat under extreme conditions without damaging the organism.