New heart transplant method offers hope

WASHINGTON — Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain-dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs.

It is called donation after circulatory death, a method long used to recover kidneys and other organs but not more fragile hearts. Duke Health researchers said on Wednesday that using those long-shunned hearts could allow possibly thousands more patients a chance at a lifesaving transplant — expanding the number of donors' hearts by 30 percent.

"Honestly, if we could snap our fingers and just get people to use this, I think it probably would go up even more than that," said transplant surgeon Jacob Schroder from the Duke University School of Medicine, who led the research. "This really should be standard of care."