Portable Warm Blood Perfusion System (Organ Care System) for Living Heart Transplantation

Note: The following ratings and comments reflect the opinions and consensus of an expert panel convened by ECRI Institute to review information on this topic.

Anticipated Utilization: 3(Expected to be used by 40% to 60% of eligible patients)

By maintaining organ function outside the body, the Organ Care System™ (OCS™) (TransMedics, Inc., Andover, MA, USA) purportedly allows clinicians to better assess the viability of donor organs and better match donors and recipients. The system will likely be used selectively in heart transplantations. Experts commenting on the technology thought that its added cost, complexity, and logistical demands would generally limit use to preserving expanded-criteria donor hearts rather than all donor hearts. Available data do not establish the system's superiority to static cold storage. Broader use for preserving all donor hearts may develop if additional data demonstrate substantially improved patient outcomes from warm-blood perfusion preservation compared to static cold storage.

Estimated Adoption Status: 2(Early adoption...