Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Keeping Livers 'Warm And Happy' Instead Of On Ice While Transporting The Organs May Improve Success Rates
Stat: A 'Breakthrough In Organ Preservation' Raises Hopes For Tranplants
For decades, transplant surgeons have treated organs as if they were beers for a camping trip: You just pack them in a cooler and hit the road. But livers, it turns out, aren’t much like lagers, and might benefit from a different sort of travel. The alternative that researchers have come up with is a machine designed to mimic the environment of the human body, keeping the organ warm and breathing as it’s being shuttled from donor to recipient. Now, after comparing the two, a team has shown that this contraption not only kept livers safer for longer than cold storage, but also allowed surgeons to transplant organs that might otherwise have been thrown out. (Boodman, 4/18)
The Associated Press: Warming, Not Cooling, Donated Livers May Improve Transplants
The transplant community isn't ditching affordable ice chests for the far pricier approach just yet. But proponents hope that storing organs in a way that mimics the body might eventually increase the number of transplants — by keeping precious donations usable for longer periods, and allowing use of some that today get thrown away. (4/18)
Los Angeles Times: Liver Transplants Are Better All Around When You Hold The Ice
For 30 years, newly harvested livers have been flushed with preservation fluid, then stored on ice until their prospective recipients were ready for surgery. The new technique, called "normothermic preservation," keeps the liver at body temperature and nourishes it with a continuous flow of oxygenated blood and other nutrients.The researchers — known as the Consortium for Organ Preservation in Europe — tested the two methods in a rigorous, first-of-its-kind clinical trial. (Healy, 4/18)
