A Kazakhstani team of cardiac surgeons at University Medical Center is working on a unique device for preserving organs outside the body. This could significantly improve the results of transplants, UMC reports.

As part of the project, specialists are developing technology to preserve a beating heart, as well as “breathing” lungs and a functioning liver. Expansion to kidneys is planned for the future. The organ will be able to be preserved in a viable state for at least 24 hours.

It has been scientifically proven that heart function outside the body can be preserved for 29 hours with subsequent successful transplantation. To date, only one device, the American OCS system from TransMedics, allows safe and effective preservation of organ viability.

“The main difference between our device and the American device is that it involves longer support for an isolated organ, and unlike its American counterpart, our system provides for treatment of the organ throughout the period of preservation of viability outside the body, and we can treat, evaluate the organ by performing ultrasound, intravascular examination of the arteries that feed the heart, and thereby make sure it is preserved so that the recipient receives the organ and has no risk of rejection or dysfunction tra