Researchers have developed aninnovative machine that can repair injured human livers, and keep them alive outside the body for one week, and this development might increase the number of available organs for transplantation.

According to the researchers, including those from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, injured livers can recover almost complete function under the support of the new technology for several days, with the potential to save the lives of patients suffering from liver disease, or a variety of cancers.

In the journal Nature Biotechnology, the device is described as a complex perfusion system which supports organs by mimicking core body functions of the liver.

Pierre-Alain Clavien, study co-author from ETH Zurich, explained that the success of this unique perfusion system which is developed over a four-year period by a group of surgeons, biologists, and engineers has paved the way for many new applications in transplantation and cancer medicine helping patients with no liver grafts available.

When the project started in 2015, the scientists had said that livers can only be kept on the machine for 12 hours. The study noted that with further advancements, scientists could successfully run perfusion of poor-quality livers for seven-days, allowing for a wide range of strategies such as repairing of pre-existing injuries, cleaning of fat deposits in the liver, or even regeneration of partial livers.

Philipp Rudolf von Rohr, study co-author from ETH Zurich, said that the biggest challenge in the initial phase of the project was to find a common language that would allow communication between the clinicians and engineers.

The scientists showed that six of ten perfused poor-quality human livers which were declined for transplantation by all centres in Europe, recovered to full function within one week of application of the machine, with the study.

Source: ET Healthworld