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Launch of an innovative use of drones to take blood samples from a North Carolina hospital campus.
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A kidney planned for a transplant was delivered by a drone for the first time in its history, said the medical center of the University of Maryland, saying it could make organ harvesting safer and more affordable.
The drone was custom built to monitor the organ in the air in real time when it was delivered on April 19 and send updates to transplant personnel, the hospital said in a statement released on Friday.
The recipient of the released kidney was a 44-year-old woman from Baltimore who had spent eight years on dialysis before undergoing the transplant, said the hospital.
For the very first time, a drone has been used to deliver a human kidney for transplantation. (Photo: Mark Teske, School of Medicine, University of Maryland)
"Thanks to the exceptional collaboration between surgeons, engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), organ procurement specialists, pilots, nurses and, ultimately, the patient, we have made a breakthrough in the field of transplantation." said Joseph Scalea, project manager and one of the surgeons who performed the transplant at UMMC, in a statement.
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Before initial delivery, the researchers tested the drone by delivering objects such as saline, blood tubes and a healthy but unviable human kidney.
Doctors believe that the use of drones to perform organ harvesting could make them more widely available than traditional methods of organ transport.
"There remains a sad difference between the number of receivers on the waiting list for an organ transplant and the total number of transplantable organs," Scalea said in a statement. "This new technology has the potential to help expand the donor's pool of organs and access to transplantation."
The use of drones has been widespread in recent years, with several industries integrating technology into their services.
The FAA recently certified Google's Wing service for drone delivery, while Amazon successfully delivered its first drone package in 2016.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @ brettmolina23.
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