Australian surgeons successfully transplant 'dead' hearts into living patients

Australian surgeons successfully transplant &#039;dead&#039; hearts into living patients

(Image credit: iStock)

last updated 8 January 2015

The procedure is a medical breakthrough 20 years in the making — and it could save the lives of 30 percent more heart transplant patients.

Up till now, heart transplants could only be done with still-beating organs donated from brain-dead patients. But a team at St Vincent's hospital in Sydney, Australia, announced Friday that they had transplanted hearts that had stopped beating for 20 minutes into three patients. Two of the patients have recovered well. The third only recently underwent the procedure and is still in intensive care, The Guardian reports.

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Lauren Hansen produces The Weekâ€™s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.

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