The Organ Care System jointly developed by Wuhan Union Hospital and magAssist has ushered in a breakthrough

July 1, 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Looking back on the past 100 years, the Communist Party of China and the people of China have forged ahead on a road of hard work. The sustainable development of the economy and the overall progress of the society indicate that China is growing stronger and prosperous. The "small boat" 100 years ago has grown into the "giant Cruise" of today's world.

The competition in the future is the competition of science and technology, including "Bringing manufacturing back" in the United States, "industry 4.0" in Germany, and "Smart Manufacturing" in China. We find that technology is the direction of all countries' efforts and development. The competition pattern of big countries is the competition of science and technology at all levels in various fields. The innovation ability and industrialization level of domestic high-end medical devices also undertake the lofty mission of "Smart Manufacturing in China".

Innovation is foundation of a country's development, even more so the driving force for the development of medical devices. At present, there still remains "bottlenecks" in the domestic cutting-edge medical device industry, and problems including insufficient innovation in cutting-edge fields and lack of core components are particularly prominent. The 14th Five-Year Plan of the State clearly pointed out that it is necessary to achieve breakthroughs in the core technology of high-end medical equipment and accelerate the promotion of import substitution. Under the encouragement of the national policy, a great deal of exceptional medical device companies has grown rapidly in China.

Since its establishment in 2017, magAssist has developed rapidly over the past 4 years. Today, magAssist has achieved the fastest research and development progress, the best technology, and the most complete product line in the field of extracorporeal life support devices. On the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Organ Care System jointly developed by Wuhan Union Medical College and magAssist successfully completed the first domestic warm blood transfusion of waste animal hearts. This is another critical breakthrough that has been achieved in the frontier field of heart transplantation in China.

The Organ Care System runs smoothly for 4.5 hours

Successful transshipment across 150 km

Professor Ping Li from the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery of Wuhan Union Medical College Hospital and the team of engineers from magAssist worked together to connect a sheep's heart to a Organ are System after cardiac arrest and repair, and successfully achieved In vitro re-beating through autologous blood perfusion. 

All physiological indicators of the sheep's heart after re-beating were normal. Keeping the sheep's heart running smoothly on the warm-blood transfusion machine for 3 hours, magAssist's team successfully completed the main event highlight of this experiment: Traveling the sheep's heart across 150 kilometers from Taizhou and arriving in Suzhou.

Domestic Organ Care System is expected to break through the bottleneck of donor heart preservation

More heart failure patients' lives will be saved

There are 13.7 million heart failure patients in China, and the number of end-stage heart failure patients reaches 600,000. From 2015 to 2018, more than 1,500 heart transplant operations were completed in 35 heart transplant centres across the country, which is far less than the number of patients with end-stage heart failure. One of the most important reasons is the existing method of donor heart preservation - cold ischemia (the heart is placed in a mixture of ice and water at about 4 degrees above zero for preservation and transportation). This storage method is only valid for 4 hours, hence greatly limiting the transportation distance. Moreover, this storage method will also cause a certain degree of damage to the heart. With a shortage of donor hearts, restrictions on storage and transportation, more patients with end-stage heart failure regretfully pass away.

The Organ Care System jointly developed by magAssist and Wuhan Union Medical College Hospital is expected to break through the bottleneck of domestic donor heart preservation. This set of  Organ Care System can realize the transportation of the heart while being oxygenated with blood, which can greatly reduce the damage to the heart and the storage time is expected to exceed 12 hours. With a longer storage time, the transportation time and distance restrictions could be overcome, and more lives will be saved in patients with end-stage heart failure.

Experience is the best teacher

The Organ Care System jointly developed by Wuhan Union Medical College and magAssist will soon enter the clinic.

This successful animal waste heart transfusion has accumulated valuable experience for magAssist's R&D team. It not only successfully verified the feasibility of the principle and the stability of equipment operation, but also the future optimization of the whole warm blood transfer platform will be more targeted and closer to the clinical needs. This breakthrough development is a significant milestone which means China's first self-developed Organ Care System will soon enter the clinic and eventually serve the vast number of end-stage heart failure patients in China.

Content source: Yandao Medical Voice Network