Empowered Patient Podcast Organ Preservation Technology Transforming Organ Transplantation with Jaya Tiwari XVIVO
Jaya Tiwari, Senior Vice President of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at XVIVO, which is focused on improving organ preservation for transplantation. Current organ preservation methods using ice coolers limit the time and distance organs can be transported. XVIVO's perfusion technology can significantly extend the preservation time of hearts, kidneys, livers, and lungs, providing hospitals and transplant centers access to more viable organs. The company is passionate about increasing organ availability to give more patients access to life-saving transplants.
Jaya explains, "I take it back to 1967 when the first heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, and the way that the heart was preserved and transported in essentially an ice box. The standard of care for the preservation of organs is still an ice or an ice cooler with ice. So, this decreases metabolic activities. So, to try to preserve the organs so that you can get them from the donor to the recipient, the problem is that the organs are not viable for a very long time, and they start to degrade very quickly. That really limits the amount of time that the organs can be on ice, transported from the donor to the recipient hospital. Because of that logistical complexity, a lot of organs are ultimately not transplanted."
"There have been some preclinical studies that we've done that have shown viability of the heart tissue for up to 24 hours. But what I think is probably the most remarkable example that we've seen is that the universities in Paris have put together something called an investigator-initiated study, where they actually were able to transport a donor heart from the French West Indies to Paris for transplant. That was about 12 hours that the heart was in transport and using the device. So that's remarkable because that essentially tripled the standard preservation time for hearts. Now, in the US, we have a clinical trial where we're currently seeking approval from the FDA that it's safe and effective to use this device for up to 12 hours."
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