In a medical advance that can hugely benefit transplant surgeries of vital organs, surgeons in Britain have successfully performed two liver transplants using a device that can keep organs "warm" and less prone to damages outside the body.
A group of scientists from Oxford University have invented a machine which preserves human livers outside the body for up to 24 hours making 'warm liver' transplants a reality.
Two liver tranplants were carried out last month at King's College Hospital in London and both the patients are recovering well, surgeons and Oxford scientists told here yesterday.
"I was impressed to see how quickly each liver started to function following the transplant. This technology has the potential to be hugely significant and could save lives," said Dr Wayel Jassem, the transplant surgeon who performed both operations.
The new advance is set to revolutionise organ transplants as it offers the potential to increase the number of viable organs available to patients and also gives enough time to doctors to organise surgery.
"It provides an environment where the donor liver hardly knows it has left the body. Instead of cooling it to slow its metabolism we keep it functioning at normal temperature and with oxygen and nutrition," said Professor Peter Friend of the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at Oxford University.
After being removed from the donor, the liver is placed in the machine and tubes are connected to the main blood vessels.
Oxygenated blood and nutrients are pumped through the liver which continues to function and produce bile.
The Oxford inventors say their machine allows the liver to
recover from damage it has sustained and enables medical staff to test the viability of the organ to see whether it is likely to work before being transplanted into the patient.
"In experiments we have shown we can preserve a liver and monitor its function outside the body for periods up to 24 hours. By contrast livers kept on ice have to be transplanted with 10-12 hours at most," Prof Coussios explained.
At present many donor livers are rejected for transplantation because they are damaged.
Some have been deprived of oxygen while others contain too
much fat and do not survive the cooling process.
But the team stresses that it is too early to draw any firm conclusions as to the benefits of "warm liver" transplantation.
A further eight patients will receive livers using the new technique at King's College Hospital and after this initial safety trial, a broader study across three European countries is planned.
It may be several years before liver specialists can tell whether the technique has proven benefits.
The same concept is also being tested on heart and lung transplants.
