THE RELATED ART

Invention relates to a smart organ transport vehicle used for transportation of organs during organ transplantation.

The invention particularly relates to a smart organ transport vehicle consisting of cooling system cooling down the organ to a defined temperature and keeping it stable at that temperature and thus positively affecting survival effects of patients on organ during early period, a control unit allowing to monitor temperature to which the cold chamber is cooled, to monitor the transportation period and to conduct all adjustments of the smart organ transport vehicle, a communication/tracking module and application capable to allow display of temperature of cold chamber and change the temperature when required, allow conduct of all settings of the smart organ transport vehicle, allow the organ coordinator and surgery team of the recipient at hospital to monitor all travel stages, temperature and ischemia times and instant track of place of organ by organ coordinator or other authorized person and thus plan the operation phases accordingly.

BACKGROUND OF THE RELATED ART

Organ transplantation is an operation of transplantation from cadaver and living one. The organs damaged such that they can not function due to medically non-curable diseases are replaced with healthy organs from living or deceased donor and such patient treatment is called organ transplantation. Liver, kidney can be taken from both cadaver and living donor while heart transplantations can be made by taking organ from only cadaver. Rate of organ donation should increase for increase of organ transplantation rate. Organ donation is the donation of a part or all of organs by a donor for use of other people after brain death while they are still healthy. Any organs which are healthy can be donated for sake of life saving. Any person of eighteen years old and capable to distinguish between right and wrong can donate his/her organs such as heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas, and tissues such as heart valve, cornea, muscles and bone marrow. Donating his/her organs, a person may save several people’s lives.

Inadequate number of organ donations has caused increase in number of patients in organ waiting list and long time of waiting worldwide. Many patients in the list of those waiting for heart, liver and lung die just because they can not find an organ in due time.

At this point where medicine has developed to today, several organs of man can be transplanted. Here it has to distinguish between organs that can be donated only after death and those that can be donated while living.

A living person donates an organ or cell to another person in need of it . Such organs are those which we have double in our body or those that can renew themselves. For instance, kidney, liver and renewable cells or blood, marrow and productive cells. Rather than age of the donor, the status of the organ is very important but in general organs of those over 70s are taken in very rare situations.

The organs and tissues donation of which can be accepted after death: pancreas, intestines, ossicles, skin, heart, heart valve, cornea, bone tissue, cartilage tissue, liver, lung, kidney, muscle and a part of cerebral cortex.

The need for heart transplantation in the world has rose 100 % recently. The most important reason behind it is the enhancement of selection criteria and therefore, decrease in number of potential heart donors. Standard donor criteria fail to meet the increasing need. Incompatibility between number of donors and recipients causes increase in number of patients on the list of organ waiting, longer time of waiting and increase in rate of death. The average waiting period for a patient in the list of urgent heart transplantation waiting is about 8 months in Turkey. During that period, the patients are tracked in intensive care units of hospitals. Unfortunately, some lose their lives before organ transplantation.

One of the most important factors essential in organ transplantation is the transfer of the organ to be transplanted and storage of the organ in convenient conditions during the period until performance of transplantation. Particularly, duration of sensitiveness to ischemia of organs in heart and liver transplantation is very short. The time period from stopping the heart of the donor and starting it at the recipient should not be more than 4 hours (including transfer and operation period). It requires a lot of organizations. In today’s application, after the organs are taken from donors, they are put into sterilized nylon bags and carried in ice carrying bags full of ice and designed for keeping foods. It has been used since 1960. The carrying bags are not designed for carrying organs. Main purpose of designing such bags is to carry food in good conditions.

Since it is such important and vital organ looking forward to it by patient, a system designed for carrying organ and keeping ambient temperature at 4 - 8°C required for keeping it alive and with minimum damage during carrying and capable to control and monitor it by means of a control unit outside is needed.

In the related art, the carrying systems such as Organox and Transmedics to create body ambience for carrying organs are on agenda. However, such systems are still at research stage and have no broad clinical use yet. In addition, the cost of such systems is considerably high.

While Lifeport Transporter and Airdrive used in the related art are designed only for carrying kidney and liver, the only bag designed for heart and kidney is Paragonix SherpaPak™ Cardiac Transport System bag produced by Paragonix Technologies. There are also IPU (only for abdominal organs) by Yale University not in clinical and still in research stage and LifeCradle bags under development by Texas Heart Institute. Paragonix is designed only for heart and kidney transporting. The system employed in the bags displays the temperature inside for user outside but it is not a system keeping the temperature constant.

The only bag that can be used in the current related art is Paragonix carrying bag. Said bag only displays temperature and ischemia time and also provides oxygen to organ during transport. However, all bags use either ice itself or ice bars for cooling.

As a result, the need for an economical useful new organ transport vehicle to solve above mentioned problems and inadequacy of existing solutions have necessitated development in the related art. PURPOSE OF THE INVENTION

The invention solves all of the above mentioned problems at the same time. Said invention, in its broadest form, relates to a smart organ transport vehicle used for transportation of organs during organ transplantation.

The most important purpose of the invention is to provide liquid perfusion needed for keeping the organ at a certain level of fixed temperature during organ transport and keeping organ alive when required.

Another purpose of the invention is to give information to donor team about place of the organ during transport of the organ and the time when it will arrive at the hospital and thus provide preparation of the operation of the recipient accordingly.

The structural and characteristic features and all advantages of the invention will be understood better with the figures given below and the detailed description by reference to the figures. Therefore, the assessment should be made based on the figures and the detailed descriptions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES

Figure 1 is a drawing showing organ transport vehicle of the invention.

Figure 2 is a drawing showing organ transport vehicle of the invention.

Figure 3 is a drawing showing components of organ transport vehicle of the invention.

Figure 4 is a drawing showing components of organ transport vehicle of the invention.

Figure 5 is a drawing showing components of organ transport vehicle of the invention.

Figure 6 is a drawing showing components of organ transport vehicle of the invention.

REFERENCE NUMBERS 100. Organ Transport Vehicle

110. Control Unit 111. Communication/ T racking Module

120. Sterilized Chamber 130. Cold Chamber

131. Housing

132. Ice Chamber

133. Lock System 140. Cooling System 150. Power Supply

160. Perfusion System

161. Spindle

170. Body

171. Lock Housing 172. Wheels

173. Transport Arm

180. Lid

181. Lid Lock System

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a smart organ transport vehicle (100) used for transportation of organs during organ transplantation.

Figure-1 , Figure-2, Figure-3, Figure-4, Figure-5 and Figure-6 shows the organ transport vehicle (100) and details of it. Organ to be transported is put into the sterilized Chamber (120) designed separately for organs such as heart, lung, kidney, liver. The sterilized chamber (120) is put into the housing (131 ) in the cold chamber (130) and locking system (181 ) of the lid (180) is connected to the lock housing (171 ) and tightly closed. In addition, the lock system (133) keeps the sterilized chamber (120) in the housing (131 ) without moving. The weight sensor provided in the cold chamber (130) recognizes that the sterilized chamber (120) is connected and thus starts transport timing in the control unit (1 10). Before the sterilized chamber (120) is located in the cold chamber (130), the cooling system (140) is started from the control unit (1 10) and the cold chamber (130) is brought to the proper temperature for organ transport and provided to remain at that temperature. In addition, temperature of the cold chamber (130) can be tracked and/or changed by help of the communication/tracking module (11 1 ) and application from the control unit (1 10). All controls and adjustments of the organ transport vehicle (100) can be conducted from the control unit (1 10) and/or from mobile devices via application by use of communication/tracking module (1 1 1 ). The lid lock system (181 ) keeps the lid (180) tightly and prevents penetration of air into the cold chamber (130). The cooling system (140) is supplied by power supply (150). In case level of power supply (150) gets lower or finishes, then ice is put in the ice chamber (132) to keep the cold chamber (130) cold. Therefore, transport of organ at the most convenient temperature and conditions is provided. Thus it will positively affect survival effects of recipient patients on organ during early period. It will have positive effects on survival of patients waiting for organ for years and organ transplantation for which health insurance has made huge expenditures. Since the patients getting recovery make less applications for intensive care unit and hospitals, it will have less economic burden on the health system. Moreover, working or producing healthy individuals will make contribution to economy of the country.

Rechargeable power supply (150) is recharged before start of transport or can be recharged by connecting to power supplies at places such as vehicle, aircraft during transport. Cardioplegia or protective solutions are given to organs externally by the perfusion system (160) when deemed necessary. In case charge level of power supply (150) decreases or finishes, the spindle (161 ) of the perfusion system (160) is turned and operated externally. Organ coordinator and recipient surgery team at hospital can monitor all travel stages, temperature and ischemia periods by help of the communication/tracking module (11 1 ) and application. Furthermore, organ coordinator or other authorized person can instantly track the real time place of the organ by help of the communication/tracking module (1 1 1 ) and recipient’s operation stages are planned accordingly. Thus organ removing teams will not waste further time and effort for communication. The wheels (172) located under the body (170) and transport arm (173) provides easy movement and transport of the organ transport vehicle (100). Height of the transport arm (173) can be adjusted as requested. The protection scope of this application has been specified under claims and cannot be limited to the descriptions only given as sampling above. It is clear that a person skilled in the related art can provide the novelty disclosed under the invention by use of the similar embodiments and/or can also apply this embodiment in other areas for similar purposes used in the related art. Therefore, it is obvious that such embodiments will be lack of novelty and particularly, surpassing the state of art criteria.