Iranian Invents Machine to Keep Brain-Dead Donors’ Hearts Alive for 2 Months

An Iranian inventor, Abolfazl Elyasi Irayi, has invented a machine which can keep alive the heart of a brain-dead patient for two months before it is transplanted into the body of a recipient.

“In the world, the heart of a brain-dead patient could be kept alive for transplantation just for 72 hours but in this invention we can transplant the heart of the brain-dead patient into this machine and it can keep the heart alive for two months for re-transplantation,” Elyasi Irayi told FNA.

He said that the machine had earlier won international acclaim, including a third-place prize at the International Inventions Exhibition and Competitions in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2009.

Iranian physicians and surgeons have made good progress and achievements in the transplantation of different organs of bodies.

Iranian surgeons for the first time in the country in 2010 carried out multi-organ transplantation.

During the 10-hour operation carried out in Namazi Hospital in Iran’s Southern city of Shiraz, the surgeons successfully performed first multi-organ transplantation in a 31-year-old man suffering from cancer.

“Multi-organ transplantation is only performed in six centers across the world,” the head of the organ transplantation department of Namazi Hospital Seyed Ali Malek Hosseini said after the breakthrough surgery last year.

Malek Hosseini added that surgeons have succeeded in transplanting the intestine, stomach, duodenum, pancreas, and spleen of a brain-dead donor into the body of the young man.

Also, in spring 2009, Iranian surgeons for the first time in the world transplanted a patient’s heart and her two lungs simultaneously in a Tehran hospital.

“Doing such a transplant was a medical wish. Simultaneous surgeries, maintaining anesthesia and high post-operation bleeding all make this surgery very cumbersome, but this long-awaited wish eventually came true in the Masih Daneshvari Hospital, “Ali Akbar Velayati, the hospital president, said at the time.