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Artificial liver can help you wait on the transplant waiting list
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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An artificial liver has been created in China that includes human cells for better compatibility. According to experts, such an artificial liver will help to prolong the lives of patients who are waiting for a transplant operation, since most patients simply do not wait their turn for a donor organ.
In China, lab-grown livers have been used for more than 15 years to help patients wait for a donor organ. But previously, pig cells were used to create such livers, but at the Shanghai Institute, specialists were able to grow a liver suitable for a temporary transplant to a person waiting for a transplant operation.
To reduce the likelihood of rejection of the artificial organ, specialists used human cells from fat, skin and other tissues that are capable of reprogramming themselves to liver enzymes.
Experts conducted animal tests and experiments clearly showed that pigs that suffered from liver failure and were given an artificial liver remained alive in 80% of cases. In the group where the animals were not given a temporary organ, death occurred within 3 days.
Project leader Ding Yitao also noted that the first clinical trials involving humans have shown positive results. The artificial organ was transplanted to a 61-year-old patient suffering from acute liver failure. Scientists note that after the operation, the patient feels quite normal, and the temporary organ will allow time to be gained until the operation to transplant the donor organ.
The liver, like other internal organs of a person, works around the clock, however, there are some differences in its work. This organ is forced to tolerate all our bad habits, stress, as well as the negative impact of the environment. The liver has a huge number of functions - neutralization of harmful substances that have entered the body, participation in the digestion process, maintaining constancy in the body and much more. With liver failure, liver cells are affected, which causes disruption and a decrease in the main functions of the organ, as a result of which the level of toxins and decay products in the blood increases and severe intoxication begins. With this pathology, hepatic coma often develops, i.e. complete failure of the liver and damage to the brain by toxic substances that have entered the blood, as a result, death occurs.
More than 50% of patients worldwide die from liver failure; about 2 thousand people die from this pathology every year.
In 15% of cases, specialists find it difficult to explain the cause of the development of this pathology, but most often, liver cell damage is caused by alcohol abuse, medications, and viral hepatitis.
It is worth noting that the usual paracetamol can provoke liver failure, and the disease is characterized by rapid development (fulminant liver failure).
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