The Charity have recently agreed £100,000 toward the new Ex-Vivo programme.  The Transplant Team are excited about the commencement of the Ex-Vivo Lung Assessment procedure which has been developed by Professor Stig Steen in Sweden and is now adopted by the Wythenshawe Hospital Transplant Programme.

Mr Yonan and the team have now done a number of ex-vivo transplants, all of which have had excellent results.  

We hope that this method of assessing the lungs outside the body and improving their quality will increase the number of lung transplants that will be done at Wythenshawe Hospital.

Thanks to you we have achieved our goal of raising £1 million to purchase a Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Scanner for our hospital - the only machine of its kind in the North West.

This money was raised in a series of incredible fund raising efforts by you in just two and a half years!  A fantastic achievement.  The scanner is positioned in the hospital's new Cardiac Centre opened by Princess Anne early in May - the centre is located just opposite the Transplant Unit.  If you would like to view the machine please telephone the office to arrange a time suitable to all parties.

The new lab in the Transplant Centre completely refurbishes a facility that was originally equipped with second-hand technology installed back in 1992.  The charity funded the refurbishment at a cost of £160,000.  The overall effect has been to make the lab a lighter and more spacious environment for patients and staff to work in. The new tilt table allows better access for patients and enables them to be positioned more accurately by staff ready for the scanning procedures.  Although more complex to operate the new scanning equipment provides much greater image quality.

The main problem with heart transplants is the shortage of donors and the difficulty of finding donors when they are most needed.  Regretfully, a sizeable number of patients die before a suitable heart becomes available or they become unstable very quickly.  With the support of the Charity, Mr Nizar Yonan (Director of Transplants) along with a fully trained team of surgeons, physicians, technicians and nurses has been able to offer this life saving facility to patients at the Transplant Unit in Wythenshawe Hospital for the past twelve months.  The early results have been very successful gaining vital life-saving time for a number of patients.  The artificial hearts have also been used post transplant with certain patients requiring additional support for their transplanted heart with outstanding success.  This has given the Unit the opportunity to provide essential data to the Health Service for which the government will provide future funding to develop the programme to the benefit of more patients.

Thanks to the Charity and its supporters - the lung transplant team have been able to purchase new state of the art videobronchoscopy equipment to the tune of £50,000.  This new equipment allows the ability to record pictures of the patient's airways which helps to follow changes in the transplanted lungs more objectively.  It also allows patient's to watch the procedure on a TV sceeen whilst it is happening.  Dr Colm Leonard says it has been a great success and makes life a lot easier for all those concerned.