Drone delivery services have been getting a lot of attention recently, but this attention has generally focused on commercial applications such as Amazon’s Prime Air.
Now, in the first flight of its kind, a kidney has been delivered for transplant using a specially designed drone or unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
It’s hoped that such delivery systems could become commonplace. The delivery to a patient in Maryland was a short test flight of a little under three miles, but longer flights should now follow, and the speed of this method could prove crucial in some cases. According to US transplant organisation the United Network for Organ Sharing, 4% of organ deliveries were delayed by two hours or more, while 1.5% didn’t make it to their destinations at all.
Dr Joseph Scalea from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), who was one of the surgeons performing the transplant, told the BBC: ‘Delivering an organ from a donor to a patient is a sacred duty with many moving parts. It is critical that we find ways of doing this better.
‘As a result of the outstanding collaboration among surgeons, engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), organ procurement specialists, pilots, nurses, and, ultimately, the patient, we were able to make a pioneering breakthrough in transplantation.’
Minutes count in delivering a healthy organ
He said that organs became less healthy after being removed from their donor, with minutes and even seconds potentially counting. He recalled one case where a kidney took 29 hours to arrive and said that the patient would probably have enjoyed another several years of life had the process been quicker.
The Maryland drone flight required a number of technological innovations. The drone itself was custom-made to ensure that it could carry the weight of the organ, as well as essential sensors and other equipment. It had a number of fail-safes built in, including back-up motors, propellers and batteries. It was also fitted with a parachute in case of catastrophic failure in the air.
The flight was monitored via a wireless network by two pilots on the ground, who had the capacity to take control if anything went wrong with the automated flight path. The drone also had a number of sensors to monitor temperature, pressure and vibrations.
The progress of the drone’s flight could also be tracked by medics, leading to it being described as like an ‘Uber for organs’.
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