A supercooling technique created by researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Engineering in Medicine preserved rat livers for as long as four days - three times longer than researchers were previously able to store livers. The team behind this design described the method as a combination of using below-freezing temperatures and the injection of protective solutions to the organ.
Once an organ loses oxygen, it begins to decay. The preservation of organs for a longer time is imperative, especially for organ donor banks. A longer preservation time would help hospitals transport organs across longer distances, providing potentially life-saving transplants to more people.
The researchers used the "supercooling" technique to store organs in below-freezing temperature. Supercooling reduced the rate of the liver's metabolism, resulting in a longer period of preservation. The team used polyethylene gycol (PEG) and 3-OMG - a glucose derivative - to protect the cell membranes and reduce risks associated with the process.
"To our knowledge, this is the longest preservation time with subsequent successful transplantation achieved to date," Korkut Uygun, medical researcher at the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) and co-senior author of the report, said in a news release. "If we can do this with human organs, we could share organs globally, helping to alleviate the worldwide organ shortage."
Although there would still be much work before this could be applied to human livers, the notable extension of the preservation time was achievement enough. The researchers explained that the technique successfully reduced damage sustained during the preservation stage of the liver . This could be used to make more organ donations possible to more patients. According to the American Liver Foundation, more than 6,000 liver transplants are conducted in the United States per year, with 16,000 patients still remaining on the extensive waiting list.
The study was published in the June 29 issue of Nature Medicine.
