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

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