Normothermic Machine Perfusion a ‘Game-Changer’ For Liver Transplants
Originally published by our sister publication, General Surgery News
In a new study, the use of normothermic machine perfusion allowed the transplantation of roughly 70% of livers that were deemed unfit for transplant. The findings, presented at the joint annual meeting of the Central Surgical Association/Midwest Surgical Association (abstract 20), come from a study of 21 humans livers designated to be discarded.
According to lead study author Cristiano Quintini, MD, the director of the Liver Transplant Program at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, this is the first clinical trial in the United States to evaluate normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) for use on discarded livers with the goal of liver transplantation. “There continues to be a huge discrepancy in the organ supply and demand. There are still 15% to 20% of patients that are on the liver transplant waitlist that will never be offered an organ and will die on the waiting list,” said Dr. Quintini. “Normothermic machine perfusion is a game-changer in the field of organ transplantation.”
NMP is a method of organ preservation that provides oxygen and nutrition during organ preservation and allows aerobic metabolism. “The machine allows livers to be kept outside of the body in near-physiological conditions, similar to those found in the body, with oxygenated blood that is pumped at body temperature through the organ,” said Dr. Quintini. “I tell the patient that we maintain the organ alive, for lack of a better term, during the preservation time, as opposed to maintaining the organ on ice and cooling it down to near freezing temperatures [as is usually done in transplants].”作者: StephenW 时间: 2022-2-6 19:22