The challenge of improving donor heart preservation

Heart transplantation has in recent years become the treatment of choice for end stage heart failure. However while the waiting list for transplantation is growing steadily, the donor pool is not increasing. Therefore, in order to meet demand, transplant programs are using older, "marginal donors" and accepting longer ischaemic times for their donor hearts. As donor organs are injured as a consequence of brain death, during the period of donor management, at organ harvest, preservation, implantation and reperfusion, expansion of acceptance criteria places a great burden on achieving optimal long-term outcomes. However, at each step in the process of transplantation strategies can be employed to reduce the injury suffered by the donor organs. In this review, we set out what steps can be taken to improve the quality of donor organs.