Abstract
Over the past several decades, donor organ allocation systems have continued to evolve, yielding increasingly complex, long distance, and potentially hazardous transportation logistics for both procurement teams and the organs themselves. This chapter explores the makeup of traditional donor organ transport systems as well as the development of biomedical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, and their application to transporting organs for transplant. The current state of the art of UAV technology, their use in healthcare delivery, and their projected role in the field of transplant will also be addressed. Advances in UAV implementation have also stimulated research into transit-related stressors that organs experience via land and air transport, ultimately yielding new in situ organ monitoring technology. Although drone delivery has only been clinically utilized for a small number of transplant cases since 2019, an increasing number of hospital systems and organ procurement organizations (OPOs) have developed partnerships to test this technology, demonstrating a broader willingness for adoption in the future. UAV geolocation capabilities have also informed a new generation of transplant team communication and logistics programs. Given the modular nature of UAV payload systems, drone implementation in transplantation may also pave the way for the integration of small organ perfusion systems. From procurement surgical team safety to transport efficiency, tracking, and incorporation of modular environmental monitoring and perfusion systems, the implementation of UAV technology in the field of transplantation will only continue to grow.
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Conflicts of Interest
Dr. Scalea holds patents in organ preservation and monitoring through the University of Maryland. Dr. Scalea founded MediGO, Inc. and MissionGO, Inc. companies which increase access to transplants using efficiency-oriented and innovative transportation models.
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Kamberi, S.S., Gavzy, S.J., Shockcor, N., Scalea, J.R. (2022). Development and Implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Donor Organ Transportation. In: Bezerra da Silva Junior, G., Nangaku, M. (eds) Innovations in Nephrology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11570-7_23
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