Machine Keeps Liver Functioning outside of body
A donated human liver has been kept alive, warm and functioning outside a human being on a newly-developed machine and then successfully transplanted into patients in a medical world first.
A British team of doctors, engineers and surgeons announcing the achievement on Friday said it could be common practice in hospitals across the developed world within a few years, up to doubling the number of livers available for transplant.
So far the procedure has been performed on two patients on Britain's liver transplant waiting list and both are making excellent recoveries, the medical team told a news conference.
"It was astounding to see an initially cold, grey liver flushing with colour once hooked up to our machine and performing as it would within the body," said Constantin Coussios, a professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford University and one of the machine's co-inventors.
"What was even more amazing was to see the same liver transplanted into a patient who is now walking around."
Currently livers destined for transplant are kept "on ice" in a process which cools them to slow down their metabolism and does not keep them functioning as they would inside a body.