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Open Access Hypothermic Organ Perfusion in the 2020's: Mixing the Benefits of Low Temperatures and Dynamic Flow Outside The Body

This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND licence.

The cold chain supply of donor organs for transplantation has been an integral part of the delivery of transplant clinical services over the past five decades. Within the technologies used for this, hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) was a concept, which was attractive to maintain organs under optimal conditions outside the body, and many early research studies on HMP were reported. However, it took the arrival of important new concepts to ensure that HMP was logistically feasible and valuable from an organ physiology perspective within the clinical pathways. This review provides details of the current status of HMP across the range of organs transplanted in the clinic, and discusses what new areas might benefit from applying HMP in coming years. In conclusion, HMP is now being used more frequently for clinical organ preservation in a variety of settings. As new therapies such as cell or gene therapy become more common, HMP will continue to play an important facilitator role for optimising organs in the donor pathway.

Keywords: DYNAMIC COLD PERFUSION; HYPOTHERMIC MACHINE PERFUSION; ORGAN; ORGAN PERFUSION SYSTEMS; PRESERVATION

Document Type: Research Article

Affiliations: 1: Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine of NAS of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Ukraine 2: Division of Surgery & Interventional Science, University College London Medical School, London, UK

Publication date: September 1, 2022

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  • CryoLetters is a bimonthly international journal for low temperature sciences, including cryobiology, cryopreservation or vitrification of cells and tissues, chemical and physical aspects of freezing and drying, and studies involving ecology of cold environments, and cold adaptation

    The journal publishes original research reports, authoritative reviews, technical developments and commissioned book reviews of studies of the effects produced by low temperatures on a wide variety of scientific and technical processes, or those involving low temperature techniques in the investigation of physical, chemical, biological and ecological problems.

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