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Delhi Hospital Restarts Blood Flow After Death to Enable Transplants in Asia First

Rapid allocation by India's transplant network shows a viable path to donation after circulatory death.

Overview

  • HCMCT Manipal Hospital in Dwarka used normothermic regional perfusion with an ECMO circuit to restore circulation to abdominal organs after circulatory arrest.
  • The donor, 55-year-old Geeta Chawla with motor neuron disease, died at 8:43 pm on November 6 after the family declined life support in line with her wishes to donate.
  • The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation allocated the organs immediately, sending the liver to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences for a 48-year-old male recipient.
  • Two men, aged 63 and 58, received the kidneys at Max Hospital in Saket, with corneas and skin also retrieved for other patients.
  • Hospital officials described the case as Asia’s first use of post-mortem circulation for organ preservation and said it points to wider DCD adoption in India, which ranked eighth globally for brain-death donors in 2024.