First report of a successful pediatric heart transplantation from donation after circulatory death with distant procurement using normothermic regional perfusion and cold storage.

Heart transplantation (HT) from donation after circulatory death (DCD) is a promising alternative to expand the heart donor pool. Cold storage can be used in a strategy to successfully retrieve and transplant DCD hearts after reconditioning using normothermic regional perfusion for distant procurement. Herein, we present the first report of a pediatric DCD heart reconditioned with normothermic regional perfusion, preserved using only cold storage while being transported to a neighboring center, and then successfully transplanted after nearly 2 hours of cold static storage. If supported by an appropriate trial, this finding could obviate the need to use expensive perfusion devices for short interhospital distances for DCD heart transportation and stimulate more centers across the world to embrace DCD HT. (C) 2019 International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. All rights reserved.