Viability Criteria during Liver Ex-Situ Normothermic and Hypothermic Perfusion

Abstract

With the increased use of extended-criteria donors, machine perfusion became a beneficial alternative to cold storage in preservation strategy for donor livers with the intent to expand donor pool. Both normothermic and hypothermic approach achieved good results in terms of mid- and long-term outcome in liver transplantation. Many markers and molecules have been proposed for the assessment of liver, but no definitive criteria for graft viability have been validated in large clinical trials and key parameters during perfusion still require optimization.In this review, we address the current literature of viability criteria during normothermic and hypothermic machine perfusion and discuss about future steps and evolution of these technologies.

Keywords

• liver transplantation
• viability criteria
• machine perfusion
• hypothermic machine perfusion
• normothermic machine perfusion