Restarting hearts in heart transplants

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Ironheme

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Maybe I'm missing this somewhere, but - how is a heart restarted after being taken out from a donor?

We were taught that defibrillation doesn't work for non-VF/VT, and when you look at heart transplant videos it certainly doesn't seem like the heart is beating. But then you see paddles restarting the heart (after it's been injected with KCl I assume). So is the heart just beating very very slowly on ice? Or is there some caveat of defibrillation?

Hopefully not a completely stupid question :oops:.

Thanks!

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[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOBWMITf3co[/YOUTUBE]

Go to about 43:00 in.

Blood hitting the coronaries, even at low flow can return the heart to a state of automatism.


At 45:00 he really explains it, but the transplant heart starts at 43:00
 
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