Calcium-scoring service helps ensure viable donor hearts can be offered for transplant when a heart cath isn’t available
Every year, there are donor hearts that aren’t offered for transplant because a cardiac catheterization, commonly called a heart cath, isn’t practical or available within the narrow time window of donor evaluation.
A growing number of organ donation and transplantation leaders believe calcium scores obtained from routine chest CT scans can help change that.
Now, CompuMed, a leader in transplant-focused remote diagnostics and donor data management, is helping make that clinical approach more broadly accessible. Working alongside heart transplant surgeon Brian Lima, MD, MBA, and longtime strategic partner 3DR Labs, the nation’s largest and most trusted provider of 3D medical image post-processing, the company has launched a transplant-focused Calcium Scoring service for organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and transplant centers nationwide.
Creating Another Pathway for Donor Heart Evaluation
Before a donor heart can be accepted for transplant, transplant teams must determine whether coronary artery disease is present. Traditionally, that evaluation has relied on cardiac catheterization (heart cath), an invasive procedure that isn’t always feasible in the time-sensitive environment of organ donation and transplantation.
Routine chest CT scans already performed during donor evaluation provide another proven pathway. These scans can be used to measure coronary artery calcium (CAC), a well-established marker of coronary artery disease that helps physicians decide whether a donor heart is suitable for transplant.
The approach drew significant attention at last month’s Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) Annual Meeting in Orlando, where Dr. Lima joined CompuMed to present “Innovating Beyond Barriers: New Pathways for Heart and Lung Utilization.” During the session, Dr. Lima shared how his team has successfully incorporated a CT-first approach into donor heart evaluation when a heart cath isn’t practical or timely.
“If there’s no calcium, there are very few transplant centers that would turn down that heart,” said Dr. Lima. “Our responsibility is to identify donor hearts that can safely help patients waiting for transplants, and what we’ve learned is that information already available on a standard non-contrast chest CT can provide that valuable insight.”
Expanding Access to a Proven Clinical Approach
After Dr. Lima’s team demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach – reporting comparable 30-day and one-year patient outcomes after analyzing more than 500 donor heart transplants over five years – CompuMed immediately recognized an opportunity to make the service available to all OPOs and transplant centers. Earlier this year, Dr. Lima joined CompuMed’s Medical Advisory Board, where he works alongside the organization to identify and advance practical innovations that address real-world challenges in organ donation and transplantation.
Building on Dr. Lima’s clinical experience, CompuMed developed a transplant-focused CT-first workflow that helps OPOs provide donor heart calcium scores to transplant teams more quickly and consistently. The goal is straightforward: ensure that the absence of a heart cath doesn’t automatically prevent a donor heart from being offered for transplant.
“What Dr. Lima has shown is that existing donor CT imaging can be transformative for donor heart evaluations,” said CompuMed CEO Lee Keddie. “This supports what we’ve long believed at CompuMed – that the truth is in the imaging. We’re proud to be the first to offer a solution that organizes that information, standardizes it and delivers it quickly to the people making lifesaving decisions.”
Making Calcium Scoring Easy to Access
To help OPOs and transplant centers gain immediate access to the new service, CompuMed enlisted 3DR Labs to provide the advanced imaging post-processing needed to generate standardized calcium-scoring outputs from existing donor CT studies.
Because the service is integrated into CompuMed’s existing customer portal, OPOs can request and receive calcium-scoring results through the same familiar steps they already use for other diagnostic services – leveraging CT scans already performed as part of routine donor care without adding extra work for OPOs or donor hospitals.
“Advanced imaging continues to create new opportunities to support clinical decision making,” said Dr. Robert Falk, founder and chief medical officer of 3DR Labs. “We’re proud to partner with CompuMed to help deliver standardized imaging workflows that provide OPO and transplant teams with timely, actionable information when every minute matters.”
As more OPOs and transplant programs explore CT-based donor heart evaluation, CompuMed and its collaborators hope to make a proven clinical approach accessible wherever a heart cath isn’t practical or timely, giving more donor hearts the opportunity to be considered for transplant.
Learn More about Calcium Scoring and Join the Conversation
Learn more about Dr. Lima’s experience with donor heart evaluation by reading how modern CTs are expanding access to DCD hearts or watching “No Cath. No Problem.”
