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Normothermic Machine Perfusion of Rat Kidneys for Transplantation
Published on: January 27, 2026
294
Normothermic machine perfusion of the kidney
Annemarie Weissenbacher1, James Hunter
1aOxford Transplant Centre, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, Churchill Hospital, Oxford, United Kingdom bDepartment for Visceral, Thoracic and Transplant Surgery, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria.
Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation
|September 14, 2017
Summary
Normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) shows promise for kidney preservation, outperforming static cold storage in animal and early clinical studies. Further trials are needed to confirm long-term benefits in human kidney transplantation.
Area of Science:
- Nephrology
- Transplantation immunology
- Surgical innovation
Background:
- Normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) is an emerging organ preservation technique.
- Increasing interest in NMP for kidney viability assessment, damage reduction, and transplant logistics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the current status of Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) in kidney transplantation.
- Focus on kidney viability assessment, organ damage mitigation, and transplant logistics improvement.
Main Methods:
- Review of recent large animal experiments and clinical trials on NMP.
- Analysis of a newly developed clinical scoring system for renal function.
- Inclusion of data from a UK prospective clinical phase II trial.
Main Results:
- Prolonged NMP appears superior to brief NMP after static cold storage regarding renal injury and function.
- A new clinical scoring system shows correlation with renal and tubular function.
- A phase II trial is underway to compare NMP with static cold storage for deceased donor kidneys.
Conclusions:
- Significant progress in NMP for kidneys, primarily in experimental settings.
- Clinical trials are essential to validate long-term NMP efficacy in human organs.
- Further research is required to determine optimal NMP parameters.
