Quality assessment and preservation strategies of donor liver

With the continuous development of liver transplantation technology, liver transplantation has been proven to be an effective treatment for end-stage liver disease, and the number of liver transplantation performed in China has been increasing year by year. Currently, the main sources of donor livers are from donation after brain death and donation after cardiac death. Although these have expanded the sources compared to the early days of liver transplantation, China, being a country with a high prevalence of liver diseases, still faces a significant gap between the demand and supply of organs, which has become the most important factor restricting the conduct of liver transplantation. Many donor livers, due to underlying diseases, prolonged ischemia, and other "marginal" factors, may lead to graft dysfunction and other complications after transplantation when using expanded criteria marginal donor livers, which can severely affect the recipient's prognosis and may even result in the discard of marginal donor livers. In order to increase the utilization rate of grafts, reduce the incidence of severe complications after liver transplantation, and improve the long-term prognosis of recipients, preoperative quality assessment of donor livers, selection of appropriate perfusion and preservation methods, and monitoring of relevant indicators in the perfusate should be performed. The above measures can, to a certain extent, expand the donor pool, predict and reduce postoperative complications through intervention, extend the overall survival time of patients, enhance the overall effectiveness of liver transplantation, and reduce the waiting time for end-stage patients to receive a transplant.