Recovery of Energy Stores of Non-Heart-Beating Donor Livers Following Preservation by Hypothermic Machine Perfusion

The shortage of donor organs for liver transplantation requires investigations into expanding the donor pool. Non-heart beating donor (NHBD) livers are an untapped source of organs. NHBD organs are those that have had a period of warm ischemia prior to cold preservation. A main concern of NHBD livers is that there is a depletion of energy stores during the warm ischemia and subsequent cold storage. This study is to investigate the use of hypothermic machine perfusion to regenerate energy stores in the liver during 5hr storage and after 1hr rewarming in a rat transplantation model. Results will be compared with control. (no warm ischemia) and simple cold stored tissues.Copyright © 2003 by ASME