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Updated: Sep 15, 2026
Technique of Subnormothermic Ex Vivo Liver Perfusion for the Storage, Assessment, and Repair of Marginal Liver Grafts
Published on: August 13, 2014
Ex Vivo Normothermic Hypoxic Rat Liver Perfusion Model: An Experimental Setting for Organ Recondition and
Federica Rigo1, Victor Navarro-Tableros2, Nicola De Stefano3
1General Surgery 2U, Liver Transplant Unit, A.O.U Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, University of Turin, Turin, Italy. federica.rigo@unito.it.
Abstract:
The gold standard for organ preservation before transplantation is static cold storage, which is unable to fully protect suboptimal livers from ischemia/reperfusion injury. An emerging alternative is normothermic machine perfusion (NMP), which permits organ reconditioning. The ex vivo NMP hypoxic Rat Liver Perfusion Model represents a feasible approach that allow pharmacological intervention on isolated rat livers by using a combination of NMP and infusion of a number of drugs and/or biological material (cells, microvesicles, etc.). The combination of these two techniques may not only be applied for tissue preservation purposes, but also to investigate the biological effects of molecules and treatment useful in tissue protection. The protocol describes an ex vivo murine model of NMP capable of maintaining liver function despite an ongoing hypoxic injury induced by hemodilution. Furthermore, with this NMP system it is possible to deliver cells treatment or pharmacological intervention to an ex vivo perfused liver and suggests that could represent an innovative approach to recondition organs.
