There is a shortage of donor organs in liver transplantation. Researcher S. Pischke explains in this newspaper article (in Norwegian only) how a new group of patients in need of a liver transplantation, i.e. patients with colonic liver metastases, might get a liver transplanted without interfering with patients already on the transplant list; donor livers where the transplant surgeons are suspecting injury and non-function are discarded today, but could be rescued using normothermic machine perfusion and subseqently transplanted to patients who tolerate a temporarily suboptimal functioning liver – like patients with colonic liver metastases.

Liver perfusion machine (with courtesy from Prof. Porte, UMCG Groningen, NL)