HUMAN ARTERY “BANK” IN U.S.

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23288, 24 June 1950, Page 3

HUMAN ARTERY “BANK” IN U.S.

NEW YORK,

Fifteen hospitals in New York City have established a central, co-operative “artery bank” to help save lives of persons sulTering certain heart ailments. The “artery bank,” believed to be the first of its kind in the world, is a repository where arteries taken from human beings after death are preserved for grafting on to living persons. Damaged or diseased parts of a blood vessel, or artery, are removed surgically and replaced by a section of the preserved artery. The surgical technique, perfected about two years ago by Dr. Robert E. Gross, professor of child surgery at the Harvard University Medical School, gives children born with defective heart arteries a better chance of life. Dr. Gross has successfully performed the operation on 25 children in the past two years. Artery tissues from the New York “artery bank” also has been used successfully on an adult. Tissue that had been stored for 24 days was employed to replace part of his aorta, the artery that carries blood from the heart to the lungs. Arterial tissue for the “bank” must be obtained within five hours after death, and it must come from a fairly young person who has not suffered a degenerative disease. Hence the supply of such tissue must come from postmortem surgery of persons who have met sudden accidental death, or from amputations necessitated by severe injury to a limb. Except in criminal cases, postmortem surgery can be performed in the United States only when the next of kin of the deceased permits it. Doctors have asked the public to co-oper-ate in building up the artery bank supply. The stored blood vessels are preserved in nutrient solutions containing plasma, glucose, antibiotics, and similar substances. Research is under way on methods of quick-freezing human arteries so that they can be preserved indefinitely. The “quick-freeze” process has already proved successful on animal arteries, which have been preserved intact for several months.