How technology is extending the life of donated lungs

DETROIT (FOX 2) - When someone needs a donated lung, it's a race against time.

Donated organs often travel hundreds of miles to get to their recipients. Gift of Life Michigan is using new technology that mimics the human body to give lungs more time to get to their receiver.

"Up until this technology came to be we were limited to about 4 to 6 hours," said Dorrie Dils the CEO of Gift of Life Michigan.

The TransMedics Organ Care System can prolong the life of a lung up to 24 hours.

"It will allow us to travel further distances and place lungs with recipients that maybe aren’t within the 250-mile proximity that we typically stick with before this technology," Dils said.

It can also help to recondition the lungs to improve the chances of a successful transplant.

"It will help us recover lungs that maybe aren’t 100% transplantable, and we can put them on this device and we can resuscitate them in a way that would improve their function," Dils said. "This technology will allow us to go really from coast to coast to try to find the right recipient for those lungs."

This technology is also being tested on other organs.

"This device they believe can extend a heart, and possibly livers, and that technology is being tested now," Dils said.