London Health Sciences Centre says its cardiac team has completed Canada’s first “heart in a box” transplant using the Transmedics Organ Care system.
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A cardiac team at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) has completed what it says is the first heart transplant in Canada using a “heart in a box” system—the Transmedics Organ Care technology that keeps a donor heart under monitored conditions on a device before implantation.
Dr. Dave Nagpal, co-director of LHSC’s multi-organ transplant program, said the system is designed to revive a donor heart that has stopped beating after circulatory death. “So this technology allows us to take that heart with some donor blood, put it on this machine, and watch the function of the heart, so we make sure that the heart is good enough for use for our recipient,” he said.
Nagpal said the approach can expand access to donor organs by allowing transplant teams to better assess the viability of hearts that might not have been eligible otherwise.
The recipient of the donor heart was Raj Mittal. According to LHSC, Mittal underwent triple bypass surgery in 2025 and was readmitted in January, when he was given the option of being placed on the organ donation list.
Mittal subsequently received the transplant in February 2026 after a wait time of about two weeks. He said in a statement that his recovery has progressed to the point where he can do some activities such as walking and is taking part in physiotherapy, adding that he is able to spend time with his children and family.
LHSC said the “heart in a box” technology is expected to help reduce transplant wait times by better preserving organs and increasing potential transport time to as much as 12 hours.
The hospital said the technology is also expected to increase the availability of donor hearts, estimating a potential rise of up to 40 percent. Nagpal said some people on transplant waitlists become too sick for transplant—or die—before a suitable organ becomes available, and that the new approach is intended to address that bottleneck.
LHSC said the procedure reflects years of coordination among the hospital, Ontario Health and the Trillium Gift of Life Network in London. The “heart in a box” system is commonly described as allowing a transplant team to monitor a donor heart’s function during the preservation period before it is implanted.
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