Anesthetic Considerations During Heart Transplantation Using Donation After Circulatory Death

Worldwide, the majority of heart transplant organs are from donation after brain death. However, the shortage of suitable donors places severe limitations on this route. One option to increase the donor pool is to use organs from donation after circulatory death (DCD). Transplant centers for solid organs have been using DCD organs for years. At this time, 40% of solid organ transplantation in the United Kingdom uses organs from DCD. Use of DCD for solid organ transplants in Canada is also rising. Recently, there has been interest in using DCD organs for heart transplantation. The authors will discuss their experience of 4 heart transplants with organs from DCD donors after normothermic regional perfusion (NRP). The authors’ first heart transplant using a DCD organ was in January 2020, and the fourth was in March 2020, just before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The authors’ protocol using NRP allows adequate evaluation of the donor heart to confidently determine organ acceptance. The co-location of the donor and the recipient in neighboring operating rooms limits ischemic times. Avoidance of an expensive ex vivo organ perfusion machine is an additional benefit for programs that may not have the resources required to purchase and maintain the machine. Some hospitals may not have the resources and space to be able to co-locate both the donor and recipient. Use of cold storage may be an option to transport the procured organ, similar to donation after brain death organs. The authors hope that this technique of NRP in DCD donors can help further increase the donor pool for heart transplantation in the United States.