Paragonix Technologies announces utilization of Paragonix SherpaPak CTS in complex heart transplant study

Paragonix Technologies announced the presentation of new clinical data at the American Transplant Congress (ATC) on the successful use of the Paragonix SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System (CTS) for high-risk donor hearts at the Medical University of Vienna – Allgemeines Krankenhaus Wien (Vienna, Austria), a leading European heart transplant center.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Zuckermann, the Director of Cardiac Transplantation at the Medical University of Vienna, presented a series of eight non-consecutive heart transplant cases involving donor hearts with extended ischemic times that were preserved using the Paragonix SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System (CTS) (abstract C-268, ATC 2020). Donor risk levels were calculated using the Eurotransplant (ET) donor risk score and recipient risks were calculated using the IMPACT score. For this series of cases, the median ET score was 18.4 (representing a 40% probability of donor heart acceptance), the median IMPACT score was 10 (representing a 19% expected mortality at 1 year) and the median ischemic time was 4.8 hours.

The authors concluded that the Paragonix SherpaPak CTS provided consistent temperature control during transportation of the grafts and can be successfully used with long ischemic times and high-risk donor hearts.

“Despite the very complex and medically challenging case series reported here, Paragonix SherpaPak CTS performance was consistent and resulted in good patient outcomes,” says Prof. Dr. Zuckermann. “As an experienced transplant surgeon, the difference in organ quality after this transportation method is immediately noticeable. The continued research into outcomes studies like this will help demonstrate that the Paragonix SherpaPak CTS has the potential to become a new standard in organ preservation technology.”

Bill Edelman, Chairman & CEO for Paragonix, comments, “We are delighted to see the continued release of clinical research data regarding the Paragonix SherpaPak CTS. This data expands on past publications of clinically complex heart transplant situations using the Paragonix SherpaPak CTS.”