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In what the researchers call a groundbreaking achievement, an unmanned drone delivered a new kidney to a 44-year-old woman from Baltimore.
READ: All my colleagues call me "my" – meeting with the budding nurse who drove all night to bring his patients to vital kidney transplants
On April 19, the aircraft delivered the donor kidney that was successfully transplanted by a surgical team from the Medical Center of the University of Maryland to Baltimore. The patient was discharged on April 23rd.
Prior to the operation, she had been dialysed for eight years because of kidney failure.
"All this is unbelievable, years ago, we did not think about it," said the patient in a press release issued by the university.
According to surgeons and researchers, the flight shows how drones could improve access to organs for people waiting for a transplant.
In many cases, drones could allow faster, safer and more widely available organ harvesting than traditional methods of organ transport, said the transplant team.
Sacred duty
"Because of the exceptional collaboration between surgeons, engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA], organ procurement specialists, pilots, nurses and ultimately the patient, we were able to make an innovative breakthrough in the field of transplantation, "said Dr. Joseph Scalea, project leader, one of the surgeons who performed the transplantation.
"There is still a dismal disparity between the number of receivers on the waiting list for an organ transplant and the total number of transplantable organs.This new technology could potentially help expand the pool. donor organs and access to transplantation, "Scalea said.
The researchers pointed out that organ transport is one of the most crucial parts of the transplant process. The length of time an organ can remain viable in transit is crucial.
READ: Nurse drives kidney transplant 800 km at night to life-saving surgeries
Delivering a donor organ "is a sacred duty with many moving parts, and it is essential that we find a way to do it better," Scalea added.
While surgeons knew the stages of transplantation, unmanned transportation was a foreign territory.
Matthew Scbadero, director of the unmanned aircraft systems test site at the university, described the task.
"We had to create a new system that was still part of the FAA's regulatory structure, but also able to support the extra weight of the organ, cameras, and tracking, communication, and organ safety systems. in a densely populated urban area – for a longer distance and with more endurance ".
The custom built drone used in this project included eight rotors and several powertrains to ensure reliable performance even in the event of a component failure.
Cheap flights
Before the groundbreaking flight, the team developed and tested the drone by successfully transporting materials such as saline, blood tubes, followed by a healthy but unusable human kidney.
Current organ transport typically uses charter flights or expensive commercial flights, which sometimes results in an organ being left on the plane or other delays that make it unusable, noted the researchers.
Current modes of transportation also do not adequately cover rural or isolated areas of the United States, they said.
By 2018, nearly 114,000 Americans were on waiting lists for an organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. But 1.5% of deceased donor organs did not reach the intended destination; and nearly 4% of organ shipments had an unplanned delay of two hours or more.
This work is at the proof of concept stage. If successful, the team stated that it would then look at much greater distances for unattended organ transport.
Image credit: AP
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