GI highlights from the literature

Basic scienceA novel method of liver preservation may alleviate the shortage of donor organs  Berendsen TA, Bruinsma BG, Puts CF, et al. Supercooling enables long-term transplantation survival following 4 days of liver preservation. Nat Med 2014;20:790–3. There is a shortage of donor organs for transplantation worldwide. One strategy to increase availability is to enhance organ preservation and allow more potentially available organs to be used successfully. Currently, viable preservation is available up to 12 h. Although various methods of supercooling to enhance preservation have been assessed, there are many challenges in applying this to whole organs and thus far this approach has been relatively unsuccessful in animal models. This current paper reports a novel 4-step method to extend preservation of fresh rat liver to beyond 72 h and still achieve successful transplantation outcome. The method employs supercooling, the use of 2 cryoprotectants (polyethylene glycol for extracellular cell membrane protection and...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: JournalScan Source Type: research