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MEDICAL TECHStaying Alive
A new machine preserves
livers for a week outside
the human bodyMore than 1,000 people in the U.S. died
while waiting for a liver transplant in 2018,
partly because standard preservation
methods can keep a donor liver alive
outside the body for only about 24 hours.
But now, in a feat of medical engineering,
scientists have developed a machine
that can keep a liver functional for a week
or more. It has not yet been used for
human transplants, but the technology
represents a leap forward in the field of
organ preservation.
Many donor livers do not meet the cri-
teria for transplantation, because they are
too old, contain too much fat or have been
damaged (by cardiac arrest, for example).
Researchers say the new device could keep
livers alive long enough to repair them-
selves—something they can do to some
extent in the body—and give doctors time
to better assess the organs’ condition.
“We decided to [study the livers] for one
week because this is the amount of time
you need for a liver to regenerate” in
patients who have had part of the organ
removed, says Pierre-Alain Clavien, head
of surgery and transplantation at Univer-
sity Hospital Zurich and senior author on
a paper describing the research. He says
this preservation technique could espe-
cially benefit some liver cancer patients,
GETTY IMAGESwho could have noncancerous portionsT5H89ZQQ group: