Most of us only have one liver in our bodies, but a new treatment could enable people with serious liver disease to enlarge their second, third, or even fifth liver. In a world-first trial, a volunteer will soon undergo a procedure where they can grow a second liver and offer a much-needed chance to survive.
If this trial is successful, stronger doses will be tested in future volunteers, potentially allowing them to develop six “mini-livers,” according to MIT Technology Review.
This approach is applied simply by injecting cells from donor livers into the lymph nodes of patients with liver disease, in the hope that it will enable the creation of new organs. Donated livers are not suitable for transplantation, but can provide a potentially life-saving treatment option for recipients. Researchers estimate that just one liver could help treat more than 75 people.
“Using these otherwise discarded organs to help patients is revolutionary,” said stem cell biologist Valerie Gouon-Evans, who was not involved in the research, in an interview with MIT Technology Review.
Despite the enormous regenerative potential of the liver (the average liver cell is never more than three years old), there are some cases of extensive damage from which it cannot heal. In these cases, transplantation is usually necessary. However, patients with end-stage liver disease are not always suitable for transplantation as they may be too ill to undergo surgery. Unfortunately, even where organ transplantation is an option, replacing a damaged liver with a healthy one is not that easy.
Waiting time for liver transplant can be up to 5 years
First of all, the number of donated livers is quite insufficient. In the US, for example, the average waiting time for a new liver can be up to five years, meaning that about 10 percent of patients waiting for a transplant will die during the transplant. Besides the small number of donated livers, these organs are only suitable for transplantation for a very short time. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an alternative, less invasive approach.
Recently, a biotech company hinted at their intention to capitalize on advances in mice by attempting to develop synthetic human embryos that could be used to harvest transplant organs. This solution may be a clear way to circumvent the organ donation crisis, but it also raises some potential ethical concerns.
The new treatment from the company LyGenesis appears to be a less controversial option. The team has had success in animals so far and hopes to replicate this success in an upcoming human trial.
“Over time, the lymph node disappears completely, leaving behind a highly vascularized miniature liver that supports the function of the natural liver by helping to filter the animal’s blood flow,” LyGenesis co-founder Michael Hufford said in a conversation with MIT Technology Review. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do with people.”
The treatment will be trialled in 12 adults with end-stage liver disease. The first participant will receive approximately 50 million liver cells, and subsequent participants will increase this to 250 million cells, enough to form five mini-livers. Each will be studied for a year after the injection and will have to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent the body from rejecting the new mini-livers.
We won’t know the results of these trials until they’re completed in about two years, but the researchers are hopeful.
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