What are the benefits of the organ care system (OCS) for organ transplants?

The organ care system (OCS) has many benefits. It allows surgeons to:

• preserve more organs
• travel farther distances to obtain organs
• monitor the status of the organs from harvest to transplant

One of the limitations in organ transplantation is the donor pool, which, for decades, has been very still. Up to 60% of donor organs that are offered are not used. That is partly due to the distance need to travel to get the donor tissue, or the quality of the donor tissue. Because we don’t have a good way of assessing organs, we often turn down marginal hearts. The OCS allows healthcare providers to monitor the donor organ and make sure it is viable. It helps them transport the organ longer distances and match it to a suitable recipient. Research has shown that the short-term outcomes for recipients of organs transported by OCS are similar to those who receive organs transported via cold storage.

This content originally appeared online at UCLA Health.