[Non biological artificial devices: what do they mean and what is their role today?]

Chronic liver diseases affect 10% of the world population. Five million people per year have acute liver failure in occidental countries. Since more than 30 years now, orthotopic liver transplantation has been the treatment of choice for selected patients with these diseases, but the lack of enough organs to satisfy the increasing need oftransplantations as well as the elevated mortality of the operation in patients in critical condition, has led to search for additional therapies. Within the last years several therapies aiming to support liver function have developed in order to serve as a bridge to liver transplantation or as replace therapy allowing regeneration of the injured live. Biological and non biological devices providing liver support have been developed. The aim of this review is to analyze the technical aspects and the potential indications of the artificial non biological systems of liver support. In order to provide an adequate extracorporeal liver replacement, more complex and advanced techniques are needed, combining diffusion facilitated hemodialysis with adsorption and/or pheresis. Among these therapies, the more developed techniques are Single Pass Albumin Dialysis (SPAD), Molecular Adsorption Recirculating System (MARS) and the recently developed extracorporeal liver support combining albumin pheresis and fractioned adsorption (Prometheus).