Severe acute liver failure (ALF), a rare but life-threatening illness, is associated with high death rates if patients don\u2019t receive timely treatment or a liver transplant. Unlike the heart or the kidneys, there is no established mechanical device to replace the liver\u2019s function. Now, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) researchers report that a device that removes toxins from the blood can also effectively provide a bridge to liver transplantation or buy time for a traumatically injured liver to heal, suggesting broader uses for the device than previously thought.
The researchers, present the largest series of cases in the United States in which the Molecular Adsorbent Recirculating System has been used as temporary liver replacement for ALF.
MARS can be likened to a dialysis machine for the liver. It essentially \u201cwashes\u201d a patient\u2019s blood with a solution containing albumin \u2013 normally produced by healthy livers \u2013 to remove toxins such as bile acids, ammonia, bilirubin, copper, iron and phenols from the blood.
\u201cWe\u2019ve found in the use of MARS that we\u2019re able to get trauma patients with massive liver injury to recovery and, in patients who are deemed good transplant candidates, get them to transplant with excellent survivals,\u201d says lead researcher, Steven I. Hanish, MD, associate professor of surgery at UM SOM and a liver transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC).
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the device to clear the liver after overdoses and poisonings, and reduce the effects of brain swelling related to liver failure. However, it is not yet FDA-approved as a bridge to transplant. <\/p>\n
University of Maryland School of Medicine http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/ya32cuxm<\/link>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Severe acute liver failure (ALF), a rare but life-threatening illness, is associated with high death rates if patients don\u2019t receive timely treatment or a liver transplant. Unlike the heart or the kidneys, there is no established mechanical device to replace the liver\u2019s function. Now, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) researchers report that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11019,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions\/11019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interhospi.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}