The use of normothermic machine perfusion to rescue liver allografts from expanded criteria donors

The use of expanded criteria donors is one of the strategies used to overcome the gap between the demand for organs and the number of donors. Physicians debate the extent to which marginal grafts can be used. In recent years, normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) has been used to test liver viability before transplantation. Grafts underwent NMP whenever histological steatosis was > 40% or there were at least three Eurotransplant criteria for expanded criteria donor (ECD). We used NMP to test 19 grafts, 3 from donation after type 3 controlled cardiac death (DCD), and 16 from donation after brain death (DBD). Only two grafts from DBD were not transplanted, because perfusion proved they were…