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(CNN) – For the first time, a drone delivered a kidney that was then successfully transplanted to a patient, the University of Maryland Medical Center announced last week. Unmanned aircraft delivery may soon become the fastest, safest, and cheapest way to beat the organ transplant clock, drone developers said.
The unmanned aviation system was developed by physicians, researchers and aviation and engineering experts from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the University of Maryland and Living Legacy. Foundation of Maryland, a non-profit organization that facilitates the donation and transplantation of organs and tissues.
"All this is incredible," The patient, a 44-year-old woman from Baltimore who had spent eight years on dialysis before undergoing the transplant procedure, said in a press release. "Years ago, it was not something you could think of."
The faster a organ is transplanted, the better it works. The organ delivery theft to the Baltimore hospital transplant team took about 5 minutes. again the delivery of an organ from a donor to a patient has many moving parts. One of the most crucial and complex steps of the organ transplantation process is therefore transport. As a general rule, donor organs are delivered by chartered or commercial flights. Sometimes, congested air traffic causes delays, while an organ is sometimes left on an airplane.
About 1.5% of donor organ donations did not reach the intended destination, while nearly 4% had an unexpected delay of two hours or more, according to the US-based network. organs, which manages the organ transplantation system in the United States. Nearly 114,000 people were on the waiting list for an organ transplant in 2018.
The story was preceded by test flights that successfully transported saline, blood tubes, and other medical devices, and then transported a healthy but unviable human kidney. This effort included a number of technological initiatives, including a high-tech device specifically designed to maintain and monitor a viable human organ and a custom-built, unmanned aircraft system.
"We have built a lot of redundancy, because we want to do everything possible to protect the payload," said Anthony Pucciarella, director of operations at the test site. Backups included propellers and engines, dual batteries, an emergency power distribution board and a parachute recovery system in case of plane failure.
"As surprising as this advance is from a technical point of view, its purpose is broader. In the end, it is not technology. it is to improve human life," m said Darryll J. Pines, Dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. He thinks the new technology could potentially expand the pool of donor organs and provide better access to transplantation.
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