An incredible new technique allows the liver to be kep alive for a certain amount of time before it is transplanted, allowing for much longer time between harvesting and transplant.
A British team has perfected a new technique that allows the liver to stay alive by circulating red blood cells through its capillaries. The revolutionary machine in which the procedure of reoxygenation occurs has taken 20 years to develop and was thought and developed by Oxford University researchers.
In the past, the organ had to be almost immediately moved to an ice pack and then brought to the receiving patient and transplanted before it begun to die, but despite the best effort of doctors and technicians, many organs were lost.
This procedure could damage the organ, which would then become unusable.
The ability to maintain the organ alive could double the availability of organs for transplant. It could also be used for other organs.
Astoundingly the liver placed in this process returns to functioning, even producing bile as it waits it new owner. The tissue went from a dull grey to a deep maroon color not long after it was placed into the machine, doctors working on the project explained.
The machine that allows thhis procedure is still in its early stages, but it has already been successfully employed in two transplants.
About 30,000 people in Europe and the US need a liver transplant Yearly, and about 7,500 die waiting for an organ. And more than 2,000 livers are discarded each year because of oxygen deprivation or other injury. Now they could all go to a recipient.
source : France 24 /3.15.13
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