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For the first time, a human liver has been kept ?alive?, warm, and functioning outside of the body, and successfully transplanted into a new patient, in a breakthrough that has massive implications for all organ transplants.
A new machine, developed over fifteen years by scientists at Oxford University, was used to house the liver, mimicking the conditions in which it exists inside the human body. By keeping the organ at room temperature, not transporting it in cold storage, the machine may double the number of livers that can be used for transplant.
Many of an already scarce number of donated livers are rejected by surgeons as unsuitable for transplant, most for being too fatty. Fatty livers are not necessarily unhealthy, but the process of dramatically cooling them down and warming them up again causes significant damage. Donor patients are also, for the most part, getting older. It is hoped the device will dramatically increase the number of ?marginal? livers that can be transplanted.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ut-of-body-in-donor-breakthrough-8536484.html
A new machine, developed over fifteen years by scientists at Oxford University, was used to house the liver, mimicking the conditions in which it exists inside the human body. By keeping the organ at room temperature, not transporting it in cold storage, the machine may double the number of livers that can be used for transplant.
Many of an already scarce number of donated livers are rejected by surgeons as unsuitable for transplant, most for being too fatty. Fatty livers are not necessarily unhealthy, but the process of dramatically cooling them down and warming them up again causes significant damage. Donor patients are also, for the most part, getting older. It is hoped the device will dramatically increase the number of ?marginal? livers that can be transplanted.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ut-of-body-in-donor-breakthrough-8536484.html