My Heart Will Go On
By Ceri Harrop
As the world becomes ever more aware of the need to reduce waste, reuse items and reprocess all sorts of materials, recycling efforts could be going a little far. Doctors have saved a man’s life by transplanting into him a twice-used heart.Clearly all organs that are transplanted are technically “second-hand” items, but in this extraordinary case, the heart had already been transplanted once before. The first recipient of the heart suffered non-heart related complications and died.
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So do these organs never wear out? And what happens if, for example, an 80-year old dies of breathing difficulties, and donates a perfectly healthy, albeit well-used heart, to the transplant register. Will it function as normal in an active 20-something?
The heart is a collection of different, highly-specialised cells that interact to give the heart its ability to pump blood. One type - myocytes - are capable of beating in rhythm independently. During development, the myocytes come together as interconnected sheets of cells, which then beat in unison to form the heart beat as we know it. Of the 200 or so types of cell in the body, the heart cells are some of the very few that are not replaced during their lifetime. Skin and intestinal cells, for instance, are replaced frequently, but heart cells are immortal. They don’t divide and produce new cells, although they will produce new RNA and protein and change in size and shape. But given that the cells never die, would it be possible to recycle a heart numerous times until it became damaged through disease or infection?
Unfortunately it is unlikely that we will ever know the answer for sure, being as heart failure remains the most common cause of death in developed nations. Furthermore, it is standard practice not to use hearts from donors over fifty years old, except in extreme cases.
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Image: Gavin Wood
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