The European multicenter study examining XVIVO's heart preservation technology for heart transplantation continues to include patients. At present, four important European heart transplant centers in Sweden, Belgium, France and Spain have included about twenty patients in the study. Three more centers in Germany and Italy are expected to open for inclusion in the coming months.
As a number of new hospitals have requested the opportunity to participate in the study, XVIVO has now decided to add four more prominent European centers. This strengthens the ability to maintain a high inclusion rate but also spread the technology and clinical experience of the method.
The first patient in Europe was transplanted in December 2020 and the study will include a total of 202 patients. In total, XVIVO's heart preservation technology will be used in three multicenter studies in Europe, the USA and Australia. The studies will form the basis for the application for regulatory approval of the products in all major transplantat markets.
At ISHLT's (International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantations) annual conference in the end of April, the world's dominant meeting for heart transplant research, XVIVO's heart preservation technology was presented or mentioned in several contexts. Among other things, a leading research group in cardiac preservation presented results from studies in which XVIVO's heart preservation technology was used for preservation of the heart up to 8 hours outside the body. After heart transplantation, 100 percent of the transplanted experimental animals survived, while the control group, where the heart was stored by conventional method, only had 71 percent survival after transplantation.
“We can state that the interest in XVIVO's heart preservation technology is very great. It is particularly gratifying that several leading European transplant centers have actively contacted XVIVO and expressed an interest to use our technology within the framework of our clinical study. This is a very strong indication of the great potential that exists for the method and we look forward to commercializing our technology to enable more hearts to be successfully transplanted.” says Dag Andersson, CEO of XVIVO.