Is there a future for liver-assist devices?

Patients with fulminant hepatic failure fall into two categories: those who will not recover without hepatic replacement, and those with severe but potentially reversible liver injury whose livers have the potential to recover and/or regenerate. Liver support systems must provide physiologic support, rendering the patient hemodynamically stable and "bridging" the patient to transplantation, or allowing the native liver to recover and/or regenerate. Recent limited successes with bioartificial liver support for patients with fulminant liver failure are encouraging. However, these preliminary results come without randomization or control groups and without stratification by disease etiology or severity. It is hoped that randomized, controlled trials will answer important questions about the efficacy of these systems.