Surgeons in Australia say they have performed the first heart transplant using a “dead heart,” the BBC reports.
Donor hearts from adults usually come from people who are confirmed as brain dead but with a heart still beating.
A team at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney revived and then transplanted hearts that had stopped beating for up to 20 minutes.
The first patient who received a heart said she felt a decade younger and was now a “different person”.
Hearts are the only organ that is not used after the heart has stopped beating – known as donation after circulatory death.
Beating hearts are normally taken from brain-dead people, kept on ice for around four hours and then transplanted to patients.
