A clinically relevant sheep model of orthotopic heart transplantation 24 h after donor brainstem death.

See Hoe LE, Wildi K, Obonyo NG, Bartnikowski N, McDonald C, Sato K, Heinsar S, Engkilde-Pedersen S, Margaret SD, Passmore R, Wells MA, Boon A, Esguerra A, Platts DG, James L, Bouquet M, Hyslop K, Shuker T, Ainola C, Colombo SM, Wilson ES, Millar JE, Malfertheiner MV, Reid JD, O’Neill H, Livingstone S, Abbate G, Sato N, He T, Viktor von Bahr, Rozencwajg S, Byrne L, Pimenta LP, Marshall L, Nair L, Tung J, Chan J, Haqqani H, Molenaar P, Bassi GL, Suen JY, McGiffin DC, & John F. Fraser (2021). Heart transplantation (HTx) from brainstem dead (BSD) donors is the gold-standard therapy for severe/end-stage cardiac disease, but is limited by a global donor heart shortage. Consequently, innovative solutions to increase donor heart availability and utilisation are rapidly expanding. Clinically relevant preclinical models are essential for evaluating interventions for human translation, yet few exist that accurately mimic all key HTx components, incorporating injuries beginning in the donor, through to the recipient. To enable future assessment of novel perfusion technologies in our research program, we thus aimed to develop a clinically relevant sheep model of HTx following 24 h of donor BSD.