14 DAY TRIAL // If you were looking for something to keep you on the edge of your seat and remind you how utterly fascinating the human body is, here you have it: an oddly mesmerizing video showing a human heart beating outside of a body.
The box serving as a home for this heart is the work of specialists with TransMedics, a medical device company based in Andover, Massachusetts.
It comes complete with a perfusion system that delivers blood saturated with oxygen and nutrients to the organ, thus making sure it keeps beating.
The innovative technology, called Organ Care System, was designed and developed in an attempt to increase the amount of time healthy organs can be safely stored and monitored prior to being transplanted in a patient.
“This new technology, called an Organ Care System, is designed to maintain organs in a warm, functioning state outside of the body to optimize their health and allow continuous clinical evaluation,” TransMedics explains.
As you've probably figured out, the system is designed to simulate conditions in the human body. It works not just on hearts, but also on lungs, livers, kidneys and other organs, which keep functioning while connected to it.
Thanks to this technology, surgeons don't have to rush to transplant donor organs into patients. Rather, they can first keep tabs on them for a while and make sure that they are perfectly healthy before proceeding with the intervention.
*The video contains images that some people might find disturbing, so viewer discretion is recommended.
