Lung in a Box

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Anchor lead: New technology may allow more lung transplants, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Obtaining lungs suitable for transplant may now be easier with a technology that helps maintain the organs outside the body. Errol Bush, surgical director of lung transplantation at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Bush: We are now using other strategies that may capitalize on using organs that we might not have considered through a strategy called ex vivo lung perfusion. Ex vivo lung perfusion is a relatively recent technology that allow us to recover organs that were considered marginal, place them on a device where they have perfusion as well as being ventilated, so its basically being in a lung incubator, and then we’re able to monitor those organs, assess those organs, and resuscitate them, to a point that they can then be used for transplant.  :32

Ex vivo lung perfusion involves technology similar to a heart-lung machine. Bush is optimistic that utilization of the technique could greatly reduce the number of people currently on the waiting lists for lungs. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.