X-Message-Number: 15551 Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 11:28:32 +0000 From: "H. Keith Henson" <> Subject: Re: Jeff Grimes question Jeff wrote: >I am not suggesting "adding Viaspan to the mix" (presumably the glycerol mix). I am suggesting the standard operating procedure at other organizations: > >1. Blood washout in the remote location. >2. Put in the Viaspan at the remote location. These are actually one and the same step. Blood has to be displaced in a washout and either Viaspan or some similar solution is used for this purpose. It might be added that all of these solutions have a composition which looks more like the inside of a cell than the outside. (At low temperatures the ion pumps are mostly shut down.) >3. Move the patient, who is now protected with the most widely used organ preservation solution in the world, as far as I can tell. (Hardly needs to be tested!) There is nothing magic about Viaspan. Alcor was using very similar solutions at least 15 years ago in the dog work. The reason we use Viaspan it that it is commercially made and can be stored for extended periods of time. >4. Wash out the Viaspan and replace it with glycerol at the lab. > >Wouldn't this make sense, to reduce the period in which the person experiences decay/deterioration in transit? Viaspan and the other solutions slow the damage, but don't stop deterioration. Cooling the patients fast after their hearts stop is critical, getting them cryoprotected and frozen as quick as we can is the only way to stop it. Keith Henson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15551