Baptist Memphis recently completed its first heart transplant using the Paragonix SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System, an alternative to ice storage, the historical standard of care in organ preservation. The hospital is the first in the region to use this advanced organ preservation technology to transport organs.
“We’re excited to have this latest advancement in organ preservation technology as it allows us to travel farther to procure organs and shorten wait times for our patients,” said Dr. Dmitry Yaranov, program director, Baptist Memorial Hospital Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Services. “The SherpaPak offers our team a way to closely monitor the heart in real time from removal to transplant. The control that this technology offers us will help provide every possible advantage to our patients, which is our top priority.”
The SherpaPak is temperature- and pressure-controlled, maintaining the temperature of donor organs between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius — a temperature range that ensures metabolic preservation while avoiding freezing injury to donor organs traveling between operating rooms.
Since the inception of organ transplantation nearly 70 years ago, donor hearts have been carefully transported to recipient hospitals in consumer-grade ice coolers, an uncontrolled method of preservation that risks potential freezing injuries to the donor heart. Clinical studies have discovered rapid temperature decreases in ice cooler transportation, potentially introducing detrimental effects to the integrity of the donor heart. The SherpaPak technology provides a controlled method to standardize preservation; avoids the risks of unmonitored freezing injury; and provides updates in real time, with location tracking using the app.
