Description of a Novel Set-up for Functional Echocardiographic Assessment of Left Ventricular Performance During Ex Vivo Heart Perfusion.

Ex vivo heart perfusion (EVHP) is a new technology aimed at decreasing cold ischemia time and evaluating cardiac function before transplanting a donor heart. In an experimental EVHP swine model, we tested a 3D-printed custom-made set-up to perform surface echocardiography on an isolated beating heart during left ventricular loading. The views obtained at any time point were equivalent to standard transesophageal and transthoracic views. A decrease in left ventricular function during EVHP was observed in all experiments.