Journal of Bone Research
Open Access

Abstract

TNF-α and Its Importance in Transplantation

Humberto Bohorquez and Ari J Cohen

Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is the treatment for end stage liver disease with 1-year and 5-year national patient survival rates of 89% and 80%, respectively. The number of potential recipients on the national waiting list far surpasses the number of healthy organs available per year for transplantation. The options for increasing the donor pool includes live donors, split livers, and marginal livers. Examples of marginal liver donors are livers from older donors, donors with significant macrosteatosis and donors with anticipated long cold ischemia times. Transplantation of marginal livers is a known risk factor for the development of primary non-function after liver transplantation. Primary non-function is a common cause for retransplantation and death early after OLT. Optimization of marginal liver grafts would expand their utilization without increasing the perioperative morbidity and mortality. Although the precise cause of primary non-function is not known, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury has been strongly implicated.