X-Message-Number: 61 From att!arpa!RELAY.CS.NET!dupont.com!JLCL01!BEATTYR Fri Feb 10 15:36:17 1989 Received: by att.ATT.COM (smail2.6 att-mt) id AA23749; 10 Feb 89 15:36:17 EST (Fri) Received: from relay2.cs.net by RELAY.CS.NET id aa06218; 9 Feb 89 14:25 EST Received: from dupont.com by RELAY.CS.NET id aa27291; 9 Feb 89 14:18 EST Date: Thu, 9 Feb 89 14:13 EST From: "(Roy R. Beatty) Keane, Inc. [BEATTYR] 302-774-0335 B-10217" <BEATTYR%JLCL01%> Subject: CRYONICS - NYT: Preserving Transplant Livers To: ho4cad!kqb% X-VMS-To: @BWINE:[BEATTYR.MAIL]CRYO,BEATTYR Status: R _The New York Times_ Tuesday, February 7, 1989 has an article on page C8 on organ preservation: New Solution Stretches Organ Transplant Time -------------------------------------------- PITTSBURGH, Feb. 6 (AP) -- A new chemical solution can preserve human livers outside the body for up to 34 hours, doctors have reported. This would more than triple the time surgeons have to get a donated organ into a dying patient. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that the solution has enabled donor livers to be transported across the Atlantic Ocean. It also gives doctors more time to examine livers before transplanting them. Livers Viable for 34 Hours -------------------------- The article said the organs had been preserved up to 24 hours. In a phone interview, Dr. Saturu Todo, who headed a six-member research team at the university, said the solution has been used since the article was written to keep livers viable as long as 34 hours. Given the critical shortage of donor livers, the distances over which they must be transported and their relatively quick deterioration outside the body, the new solution could greatly aid transportation, Dr. Todo said. The mixture, UW-lactobionate, has also been used to extend the viability of organs for kidney and pancreas transplants, he said. Experimentation with preserving hearts is still limited to animals. "It is a breakthrough for the preservation, and also a breakthrough for transporting organs farther," he said. Traditionally, livers have been chilled and flushed with Euro-Collins solution, a mix of electrolytes and glucose. It can preserve livers up to nine and a half hours. The new solution, which includes hormones, amino acids and sugars, was developed at the University of Wisconsin and announced at the International Organ Transplant Forum in Pittsburgh in 1987. It is being tested in liver transplants on patients in Pittsburgh and at 20 to 30 other transplant centers worldwide, Dr. Todo said. In a separate study, 100 centers are testing it for use in kidney and pancreas transplants. UW-lactobionate has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for general use, he said. Dr. James Southard, a biochemist at the University of Wisconsin who helped develop UW- lactobionate, said developers applied for F.D.A. approval last August. "The enhanced margin of safety has permitted more effective use of organs that can be stored safely while waiting for operating room facilities or personnel to become available," Dr. Todo wrote in the article. Transplants More Successful --------------------------- Dr. Todo's group found that transplants of 185 livers preserved with the new solution for up to 24 hours were more successful than 180 livers preserved up to 9.5 hours with the old mixture. The transplants were performed since May 1987. The researchers measured success by the need for another transplant. Dr. Todo said the solution limits swelling in transplanted organs. One liver preserved with the solution but not included in the study was shipped from Canada to France and successfully transplanted, Dr. Todo said. Another was shipped from the United States to Brazil. About 600 livers have been transplanted in Pittsburgh after being preserved in the solution, Dr. Todo said. Pittsburgh doctors have abandoned the more conventional solution. [ Note that the conventional solution has been abandoned for a NON-FDA-APPROVED solution; too many lives would be lost if they waited for the FDA. - KQB ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=61