Platelet activation after withdrawal of life support in donation after circulatory death donors

Donation after circulatory death (DCD) heart transplantation is gaining widespread acceptance as an additional pathway for donor heart procurement, with excellent short- and mid-term results reported by high-volume centers in Australia and the United Kingdom.1,2 Because of the obligatory warm ischemic time to which all the DCD allografts are exposed, the establishment of the first successful adult DCD with distant procurement program in 2014 was dependent on both the development of pharmacologic conditioning agents to mitigate myocardial injury and an ex situ perfusion system to minimize ongoing ischemia as well as provide a platform for assessing the viability of the donor heart.
Source: The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation - Category: Transplant Surgery Authors: Tags: RESEARCH CORRESPONDENCE Source Type: research