Boston: Teams at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts have developed a method to keep test animal livers chilled while still alive and pumping oxygen for over five years, but now their experiments on discarded human livers have succeeded in keeping them in the received condition for up to 27 hours says BBC Health
This involved preparing the experimental “Donor” liver for supercooling by using protective agents that would keep it from freezing even at -4C.
As per their findings, these livers were found to function in an ‘as received’ condition, when tested for oxygen use, bile formation and lactate metabolism, once body temperature conditions were restored. The researchers had not been able to test any donor livers used in actual transplants.
Tests based on these discarded livers being so successful, the researchers are hoping that after such preservation, healthier organs received in a ‘living – fit for transplant’ condition should perform much better.
Acceptable restoration after 48 or even 24 hours after collection/ preparation would make a huge difference in multi-city or cross-country transportation of live human organs for transplant.
