Canadian euthanasia patient's heart transplanted into American in first documented case

A Canadian man who received medical assistance in dying has become the first known donor to provide a heart for transplant, according to doctors from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, reports the National Post.

Details of the procedure were published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, where researchers described “the first case of a successful cardiac transplantation after MAID.”

The donor was a 38-year-old man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis who decided on a medically assisted death and requested to donate his organs. The recipient, a 59-year-old man in Pittsburgh with end-stage heart failure, was given less than a month to live without a transplant. Ten days after being moved to a higher priority on the waiting list, he received the donor heart.

The procedure took place in Canada, where life-ending medication was administered in a hospital setting near an operating room to minimize the time between death and organ retrieval. According to the report, death was declared within seven minutes of initiating the MAID process. The donor heart was immediately removed, connected to a perfusion machine that restored circulation, and transported to Pittsburgh. The total time from retrieval to transplantation was five hours and 28 minutes.

The patient experienced some early complications but was discharged home 20 days after surgery. He remains in stable condition, the research team said.

“While longer-term data and additional cases will be required, this case suggests that safe cardiac transplantation can be performed after MAID,” the report stated. The team noted that the procedure could expand the pool of donor hearts available for patients awaiting transplants.

A growing number of patients who elect to receive medical assistance in dying in Canada have also requested to donate their organs. A 2021 international review found that Canada performs the highest number of organ transplants from MAID donors among the four countries where the practice is legal — Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain.

Between those countries, 286 patients who received assisted deaths donated organs to 837 recipients through 2021.

Canada accounted for 136, nearly half of the global total, according to the study. Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that organs from assisted-death donors made up about six percent of all deceased donor transplants in Canada that year.

Dr. Johannes Mulder, a physician and MAID provider in the Netherlands, said the growing data led to greater coordination between countries. “We saw everyone is working in different directions,” he told CTV News. “And then we said, ‘OK, well, let’s start an international discussion of all the countries involved.’”