There's help for failing kidneys and failing hearts. But there's no
fix for a dying liver. Doctors are trying to change that at a few
hospitals around the country, testing a machine packed with human liver
cells as a last-ditch chance to survive
sudden liver failure.
The
experiment is the latest in a decades-long quest for an artificial
liver, a device that could temporarily take over some of the liver's
jobs much like dialysis helps kidneys work and cardiac pumps squeeze a
flabby heart.
Unlike those organs, a
damaged liver sometimes regenerates if it has enough recovery time. If
it's too far gone, a transplant is the only option — but a dying liver
starts a fast chain reaction where kidneys shut down, bleeding begins
and patients fall into a coma, often too sick to try a transplant even
if an organ could be found soon enough.
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