Orthotopic rat liver transplantation after long-term preservation by continuous perfusion with fluorocarbon emulsion.

Isolated rat livers have been stored for up to 25 hr using a continuous pulsatile perfusion technique with and without fluorocarbon emulsion oxygen carrier in the perfusate. After preservation, orthotopically isografted livers can maintain recipient animals in good health. The longest surviving animal is alive at 12 months. A prosthetic cuff technique for the portal vein anastomosis was specially developed for this experimental series. It has simplified vascular anastomosis after the portal vein cannulation that is required for machine preservation of the donor liver. We believe that the described method in the rat liver isograft model might be useful for studies of liver preservation.