Our research uses an isolated rat heart perfusion circuit to test supplementation strategies for donor heart preservation. We aim to identify preservation strategies that can improve the functional recovery of donor hearts after either long periods of cold storage or long periods of warm ischemia following donation after circulatory death. The isolated work in rat heart protocol was used to initially test the current clinical donor heart preservation strategy of using glyceryl trinitrate and erythropoietin in the heart preservation solution.
This provided the rationale for testing in a porcine heart transplant study before transitioning to the clinic. The advantage of using an isolated working rat heart perfusion protocol compared to Langendorff perfusion techniques is the ability to obtain functional measurements of the heart, such as aortic flow and cardiac output.
