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A randomized trial of normothermic preservation in liver transplantation

Nature volume 557, pages 50–56 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Liver transplantation is a highly successful treatment, but is severely limited by the shortage in donor organs. However, many potential donor organs cannot be used; this is because sub-optimal livers do not tolerate conventional cold storage and there is no reliable way to assess organ viability preoperatively. Normothermic machine perfusion maintains the liver in a physiological state, avoids cooling and allows recovery and functional testing. Here we show that, in a randomized trial with 220 liver transplantations, compared to conventional static cold storage, normothermic preservation is associated with a 50% lower level of graft injury, measured by hepatocellular enzyme release, despite a 50% lower rate of organ discard and a 54% longer mean preservation time. There was no significant difference in bile duct complications, graft survival or survival of the patient. If translated to clinical practice, these results would have a major impact on liver transplant outcomes and waiting list mortality.

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Fig. 1: Image of liver during normothermic machine perfusion.
Fig. 2: CONSORT diagram.

Change history

  • 23 April 2018

    The Source Data files originally published with this article were missing for Extended Data Figures 3 and 4. This has now been corrected.

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Acknowledgements

This study was performed by the Consortium for Organ Preservation in Europe (COPE). We thank the European Commission for their support through the Seventh Framework Programme. The following organisations, groups and individuals also made substantial contributions without which this trial could not have been completed successfully: NHS Blood and Transplant; the Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, University of Oxford; the Clinical Trials and Research Governance unit, University of Oxford; Centre for Evidence in Transplantation, Royal College of Surgeons of England; the Liver Transplant Coordinators, anaesthetists and liver unit physicians at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, King’s College Hospital, London, the Royal Free Hospital London, Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, University Hospitals, Leuven, University Hospital, Essen; M. Soo, S. Morrish, C. Morris, L. Randle, R. Macedo Arantes, R. Morovat, A. Elsharkawy, G. Hirschfield, P. Muiesan, J. Isaac, J. Grayer, B. Buchholz, H. Vilca-Melendez, A. Zamalloa, D. Chasiotis, S. Khorsandi, B. Davidson, D. Sharma, A. Esson, D. Monbaliu, S. Mertens, S. Swoboda, J. Neuhaus, T. Benkö, V. Molina, R. Kumar, A. Bradley, M. Laspeyres, B. Patel, A. Mukwamba, S. Banks, the COPE Transplant Technicians, the Specialist Nurses in Organ Donation and, of course, all of the donors and their families. This study was funded by a European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Grant (No 305934).

Reviewer information

Nature thanks S. Schneeberger, S. G. Tullius and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    David Nasralla, M. Zeeshan Akhtar, Carlo D. L. Ceresa, Simon R. Knight, Peter J. Morris, Reena Ravikumar, Annemarie Weissenbacher, Rutger J. Ploeg & Peter J. Friend

  2. Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Constantin C. Coussios

  3. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Hynek Mergental, Darius Mirza & M. Thamara P. R. Perera

  4. Target Discovery Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    M. Zeeshan Akhtar

  5. University of Cambridge Department of Surgery, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK

    Andrew J. Butler & Chris J. E. Watson

  6. Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Virginia Chiocchia

  7. Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Virginia Chiocchia

  8. Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Susan J. Dutton

  9. Department of Hepatobiliopancreatic and Transplant Surgery, Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, Spain

    Juan Carlos García-Valdecasas & Mihai Pavel

  10. Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College Hospital, London, UK

    Nigel Heaton, Wayel Jassem & John Karani

  11. Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Liver Transplant Surgery, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK

    Charles Imber & Massimo Malagò

  12. Abdominal Transplant Surgery, Department of Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Ina Jochmans & Jacques Pirenne

  13. Laboratory of Abdominal Transplantation, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Ina Jochmans & Jacques Pirenne

  14. Department of Radiology, King’s College Hospital, London, UK

    John Karani

  15. Centre for Evidence in Transplantation, Clinical Effectiveness Unit, Royal College of Surgeons of England, London, UK

    Simon R. Knight & Peter J. Morris

  16. Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

    Peri Kocabayoglu & Andreas Paul

  17. Department of Radiology, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Arvind Pallan

  18. OrganOx Limited, Oxford, UK

    Leslie Russell

  19. Department of Radiology, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK

    Sara Upponi

  20. National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Cambridge, UK

    Chris J. E. Watson

Authors
  1. David Nasralla
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  2. Constantin C. Coussios
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  3. Hynek Mergental
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  4. M. Zeeshan Akhtar
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  5. Andrew J. Butler
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  6. Carlo D. L. Ceresa
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  7. Virginia Chiocchia
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  8. Susan J. Dutton
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  9. Juan Carlos García-Valdecasas
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  10. Nigel Heaton
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  11. Charles Imber
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  12. Wayel Jassem
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  13. Ina Jochmans
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  14. John Karani
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  16. Peri Kocabayoglu
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  17. Massimo Malagò
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  18. Darius Mirza
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  19. Peter J. Morris
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  20. Arvind Pallan
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  21. Andreas Paul
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  22. Mihai Pavel
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  23. M. Thamara P. R. Perera
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  24. Jacques Pirenne
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  26. Leslie Russell
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  28. Chris J. E. Watson
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  29. Annemarie Weissenbacher
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  30. Rutger J. Ploeg
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  31. Peter J. Friend
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Consortia

for the Consortium for Organ Preservation in Europe

Contributions

D.N., S.R.K., R.J.P., C.C.C. and P.J.F. designed this study with help from other authors. R.J.P is Coordinator of the COPE Consortium. M.Z.A. and R.J.P. oversaw the collection of samples and establishment of the trial biobank. D.N., C.D.L.C., A.W., H.M., M.T.P.R.P., D.M., W.J., N.H., C.I., M.M., R.R., A.J.B., C.J.E.W., I.J., J.P., P.K., A.Pau., M.P. and J.C.G.-V. were responsible for the clinical conduct of the study at the respective trial sites. D.N., S.R.K., V.C. and S.J.D. were responsible for statistical design and analysis. L.R. and C.C.C. provided device support and expertise to all trial sites. D.N., S.U., A.Pal. and J.K. were responsible for MRCP image analysis. P.M., S.R.K. and S.J.D. provided governance oversight to ensure the study adhered to all regulatory and ethical requirements. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to David Nasralla, Constantin C. Coussios or Peter J. Friend.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

P.J.F. is a co-founder, chief medical officer and consultant to OrganOx Limited and also holds shares in the company. C.C.C. is a co-founder, chief technical officer and consultant to OrganOx Limited and also holds shares in the company. Neither P.J.F. nor C.C.C. were involved in the selection, recruitment or transplantation of patients in this study.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Forest plot for subgroup analysis of peak AST by donor type.

Geometric mean ratio and 95% confidence interval are reported for each subgroup and overall for all groups. DBD group, n = 87 NMP, n = 80 SCS; DCD group, n = 33 NMP, n = 20 SCS.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Post-reperfusion syndrome.

a, Kaplan–Meier plot for one-year survival of patients with two-sided log-rank test. b, Kaplan–Meier plot for one-year graft survival with two-sided log-rank test.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Machine perfusion parameters during NMP.

a, Hepatic artery flow during NMP. b, Portal vein flow during NMP. c, Perfusate pH during NMP. d, Bile production during NMP. a–d, Data are mean ± s.d. of each time point. Actual values are shown in the table. n = 87.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Perfusate lactate levels during NMP.

Scatter graph with trend line showing perfusate lactate levels at different time points during NMP for all transplanted livers. n = 94.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 NMP device and circuit.

a, OrganOx metra (generation 1). The NMP device used in the trial. b, OrganOx metra NMP circuit. The liver is perfused via the hepatic artery and portal vein. It drains via the inferior vena cava to a centrifugal pump through which the perfusate passes, via a heat exchanger/oxygenator, to a reservoir or directly into the hepatic artery. The perfusate in the reservoir drains under gravity into the portal vein.

Extended Data Table 1 Detailed breakdown of reasons for discard of NMP livers
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Post-reperfusion syndrome analysis
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Extended primary outcome analysis
Full size table
Extended Data Table 4 Characteristics and perfusate analysis of livers included in NMP liver quality model development
Full size table
Extended Data Table 5 Adverse events analysis
Full size table
Extended Data Table 6 Detailed breakdown of adverse events in each trial arm
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Clinical Trail Protocol. The full trial protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial to compare the efficacy of ex-vivo normothermic machine perfusion with static cold storage in human liver transplantation.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Information

Statistical Analysis Plan. A comprehensive description of the statistical methodology applied to the trial data.

Supplementary Information

Final Statistical Report. The full report from trial statisticians reporting trial outcomes available at 1 year following completion of recruitment.

Supplementary Information

Primary Non-Function Serious Adverse Event. Clinical trial source document submitted to the trial Data Monitoring Committee providing a narrative description of the events surrounding the transplantation of a normothermic machine perfused liver which resulted in primary non-function of the organ.

Supplementary Information

Device Error Serious Adverse Event. Clinical trial source document submitted to the trial Data Monitoring Committee providing a narrative description of the events surrounding the normothermic machine perfusion of a liver in which a device error led to the organ being discarded.

Source data

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Nasralla, D., Coussios, C.C., Mergental, H. et al. A randomized trial of normothermic preservation in liver transplantation. Nature 557, 50–56 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0047-9

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