Eli5 how do you keep organs such as heart humid after it is remove from a dead body?

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Hi, after seeing a video of a how we keep a heart beating outside of a body, it has make me wonder. How come the heart look so humid, fresh flesh looking while he his expose to the oxygen that is around it.

Does the video could have been filmed right after it was plugged or is there a natural way that our organs is able to protect their external tissue, or do we put something on top?

And if it is a liquid that we put on top, could that affect the transplant?

Thank you

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2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You do not remove organs from a dead body. That is dead ia in it is no longer supplied with oxygen by the blood. The majority is o transplanted organs from the brain dead the blood circulation is still working by itself or with artificial help. In the rare case, it can be from cardiac death when oxygen is supplied by external mana and there is a severe brain injury so the are not expected to survive.

If you store the organ in a lower temperature it can survive for a couple of hours. We talk about 4-6 for the heart and lungs. 12-18 for livers, intestines, and pancreata. Kidneys can last 24-36 hours.

It is brain cells that are the most sensitive to lack of oxygen. They start to die after 10 minutes, other tissue in the body can as you see above last a lot longer especially if cooled.

The organs do not get damaged if they are just in contact with air. You do not what the to dry out so they are stored in a plastic bag with a preservation solution taht is primary water. You can look at the content of one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaspan

You typically have three bags surrounded by something to keep it cool like is. The inner bag has the preservation solution and the two outer a saline solution.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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