ITAE supports ECHORONEX by providing a new opportunity to ensure graft quality in heart transplantation.
ECHORONEX : Transplantation is a promising way to save lives, ECHORONEX offers a new perspective for the future.
The observation of coronary arteries on a graft is a crucial step to judge its health status.
ECHORONEX is a multidisciplinary project led by Dr Julien Guihaire (Marie Lannelongue Hospital / Paris Saint-Joseph Hospital Group), on the preservation of the donor graft during heart transplantation. It focuses on perfusion techniques and their evaluation by imaging.
Challenge of the project
The number of hearts available is insufficient for the number of patients who need a transplant. This leads to the harvesting of hearts with risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, which entails an additional risk for the patients.
Objectives
The mission of this project is to develop a new approach to better evaluate hearts for heart transplantation. To do this, the ECHORONEX project team is working on the preservation of the heart graft.
What impact for the patients?
To improve the evaluation of donor hearts, the team plans to use an external perfusion machine to perform this exploration prior to transplantation to ensure graft quality. In the short term, this will increase the number of grafts offered for transplant while maintaining safety for the recipient.
