World’s First Organ Delivery Via A Drone Carried Out In The US
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones have become very popular lately. Since their inception, they have been used for going into places where it is not feasible for a human to reach. In a recent breakthrough, a drone was used to deliver a kidney for a transplant in the University of Maryland (UMD) medical centre, USA. It is the first time in the world a feat like this has been achieved and it is said to have groundbreaking implications once it becomes mainstream.
What Happened?
On the 26th of April, 2019, a University of Maryland unmanned aircraft has delivered a donor kidney to surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center for successful transplantation into a patient with kidney failure. This flight was a result of a collaboration between the transplant physicians, researchers, and aviation engineers at the university. It was also collaborated on by the people at the living legacy Foundation of Maryland (LLF). The patient was a 44-year-old woman from Baltimore who had spent eight years on dialysis. She was noted saying the whole thing would not have been possible a few years ago.
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The University of Maryland (UMD) claims it carried out around 44 test flights over the course of 700 hours. To ensure maximum success rates, every possible precaution was taken and many redundancies were built into the system to protect the payload. After the drone successfully completed the required number of test flights, it was only then it was allowed to do a demo with a live organ. The new way of organ delivery through an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or drone is expected to be a revolutionary step in organ transplants. If found mainstream acceptance, it will cut travel time significantly because of not facing traffic like done in roads.
