Pharmacological preconditioning and sodium/hydrogen exchange inhibition to optimise preservation of the donor pig heart

心脏移植已成为终末期心力衰竭患者的一种非常有益的治疗方法，但其成功受到供体心脏有限的限制。许多可以考虑用于心脏移植的心脏不能使用，因为在供体死亡后可能对潜在的供体心脏造成损害。这种损害部分是由于死亡后心脏功能的恶化，部分是由于心脏移植前的取出和冷藏过程造成的。本研究将探讨两种优化移植供体心脏质量和保存的新方法。本研究中研究的治疗方法旨在防止死后和移植过程中对供体心脏的损害。这些研究将在我们实验室开发的猪心脏移植模型中进行。将在诱导脑死亡后对供体猪进行给药，并在心脏移植期间对受体进行给药。由于该模型密切模拟了人类心脏移植的所有方面，因此这些研究中的任何积极发现都将直接适用于人类移植。改进供体心脏的保存将使手术更安全，并可能增加可用于移植的心脏数量。由于许多捐赠者提供多个器官用于移植，例如肾脏，肝脏，肺和胰腺，我们正在研究的治疗方法有可能改善移植后所有这些器官的恢复。

Heart transplantation has become established as an extremely beneficial treatment for patients with end-stage heart failure, however its success is limited by the restricted availability of donor hearts. Many hearts that could be considered for heart transplantation cannot be used because of damage that can occur to potential donor hearts after the death of the donor. This damage is caused in part by deterioration in heart function after death and in part by the process of removal and cold storage that occur prior to transplantation of the heart. This study will examine two new methods of optimising the quality and preservation of the donor heart for transplantation. The treatments to be investigated in this study are aimed at preventing damage to the donor heart after death and during the process of transplantation. The studies will be conducted in a pig model of heart transplantation that we have developed in our laboratory. The treatments will be administered to the donor pig after induction of brain death and also to the recipient during transplantation of the heart. As the model closely mimics all aspects of human heart transplantation, any positive findings that stem from these studies will be directly applicable to human transplantation. Improved preservation of the donor heart will make the operation safer and will potentially increase the number of hearts that can be used for transplantation. As many donors provide multiple organs for transplantation eg kidneys, liver, lungs and pancreas, the treatments that we are investigating have the potential to improve the recovery of all these organs after transplantation.