The study published by the New England Journal of Medicine gathered round a lot of doctors who made a debate over the time an organ donor should be declared dead. This has been made because of the successful heart transplants from children who were pronounced dead after their hearts had stopped.

The hearts of the dead children are usually removed only after they are pronounced brain dead, thing that lately has reduced the number of hearts available for children transplants. One-fourth of the children who need heart transplants die before the organs become available for them.

Still, the heart donors become a new ethical subject. A heart that stops beating in one child could save the life of another and revive in him. This discovery has raised a lot of questions about donor deaths. There are at least 44 children in the U.S. waiting for heart transplants.

Professor of medical ethics Robert Veatch at Georgetown University in Washington said that the new researches ''open the door'' to heart transplants following cardiac death. Yet, there is necessary for someone to be declared dead after cardiac arrest to have the cessation of function of the heart and circulatory system irreversible.

To be sure a heart is good to support a transplant is another problem discussed in the study. So to be certain about this, doctors minimize the time from when the heart stops to when the death is pronounced.

Death is usually pronounced between two to five minutes after the heart stops because cardiac arrest is certain only after 60 seconds. This time might make the heart useless for another child.