Emerging graft protective strategies in clinical liver transplantation

Abstract

There have been remarkable efforts to characterize the key responsible pathophysiologic mechanisms, as well as to ameliorate the organ preservation and ischemia reperfusion injury with the ultimate goal of expanding the donor pool and further improvement of the outcomes of liver transplantation. Attempts to translate the experimental results from bench to bedside have yielded no valid protective concepts in the field of clinical liver transplantation yet. Nonetheless, there has been a considerable amount of ongoing clinical research to develop clinically relevant graft protective strategies. Areas covered: This review focuses on the most recent evidence based findings and ongoing clinical trials that might lead to emerging graft protective strategies in the field of clinical liver transplantation. New evidence-based findings in the donor preconditioning, organ preservation, and perioperative pharmacologic graft protection strategies in the recipient are reviewed. Expert commentary: Few strategies have been shown to exert some graft protective effects against ischemia reperfusion injury in recent clinical trials in liver transplantation. Among others, 'dynamic graft preservation' techniques have been emerging as more promising graft optimization strategies.

Keywords: Graft injury; graft protective strategies; ischemia reperfusion injury; liver transplantation; outcomes.