Publications by authors named "Adam Thorne"

Background: Normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) is increasingly used to preserve and assess donor livers prior to transplantation. Due to its success, it is expected that more centers will start using this technology. However, NMP may also cause adverse effects.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists are studying how to tell if a donated liver is healthy enough to use for transplant by looking at special markers during a process called HOPE.
  • They collected samples from livers in 10 different centers across 7 countries and found that the levels of a marker called FMN can help predict if the liver will work well after being transplanted.
  • The study showed that FMN is better at predicting liver problems compared to older methods, making it a promising tool for doctors to decide which livers are suitable for transplant.
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Background: Bile's potential to reflect the health of the biliary system has led to increased attention, with proteomic analysis offering deeper understanding of biliary diseases and potential biomarkers. With the emergence of normothermic machine perfusion (NMP), bile can be easily collected and analyzed. However, the composition of bile can make the application of proteomics challenging.

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Background: Liver transplantation is traditionally performed around the clock to minimize organ ischemic time. However, the prospect of prolonging preservation times holds the potential to streamline logistics and transform liver transplantation into a semi-elective procedure, reducing the need for nighttime surgeries. Dual hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion (DHOPE) of donor livers for 1-2 h mitigates ischemia-reperfusion injury and improves transplant outcomes.

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Normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) after static cold storage is increasingly used for preservation and assessment of human donor livers prior to transplantation. Biliary viability assessment during NMP reduces the risk of post-transplant biliary complications. However, understanding of molecular changes in the biliary system during NMP remains incomplete.

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  • Differentiating between self-resolving viral infections and bacterial infections in children with fever is challenging and can lead to improper use of antibiotics; this study aims to identify host protein biomarkers that could help distinguish between these infections.
  • The research used a multi-cohort approach and high-dimensional proteomic datasets from various European studies to shortlist potential protein biomarkers by performing several analyses and tests on collected samples.
  • A sparse protein signature was successfully identified, which distinguishes between bacterial and viral infections, and its effectiveness was validated through Luminex assays and disease risk score calculations.
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Background: End-ischemic ex situ normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) enables assessment of donor livers prior to transplantation. The objective of this study was to provide support for bile composition as a marker of biliary viability and to investigate whether bile ducts of high-risk human donor livers already undergo repair during NMP.

Methods: Forty-two livers that were initially declined for transplantation were included in our NMP clinical trial.

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Ex situ normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) is increasingly used for viability assessment of high-risk donor livers, whereas dual hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion (DHOPE) reduces ischemia-reperfusion injury. We aimed to resuscitate and test the viability of initially-discarded, high-risk donor livers using sequential DHOPE and NMP with two different oxygen carriers: an artificial hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier (HBOC) or red blood cells (RBC). In a prospective observational cohort study of 54 livers that underwent DHOPE-NMP, the first 18 procedures were performed with a HBOC-based perfusion solution and the subsequent 36 procedures were performed with an RBC-based perfusion solution for the NMP phase.

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Background: Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC) has been proposed as a therapeutic intervention to circumvent the ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) that is inherent to organ transplantation. Using a porcine kidney transplant model, we aimed to decipher the subclinical molecular effects of a RIC regime, compared to non-RIC controls.

Methods: Kidney pairs (n = 8 + 8) were extracted from brain dead donor pigs and transplanted in juvenile recipient pigs following a period of cold ischemia.

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Background: During donor organ procurement and subsequent static cold storage (SCS), hepatic adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels are progressively depleted, which contributes to ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). We sought to investigate a simple approach to prevent ATP depletion and IRI using a porcine donation after circulatory death (DCD) liver reperfusion model.

Methods: After 30 min warm ischemia, porcine livers were flushed via the portal vein with cold (4°C) non-oxygenated University of Wisconsin (UW) preservation solution (n = 6, control group) or with oxygenated UW (n = 6, OxyFlush group).

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Although short-term machine perfusion (≤24 h) allows for resuscitation and viability assessment of high-risk donor livers, the donor organ shortage might be further remedied by long-term perfusion machines. Extended preservation of injured donor livers may allow reconditioning, repairing, and regeneration. This review summarizes the necessary requirements and challenges for long-term liver machine preservation, which requires integrating multiple core physiological functions to mimic the physiological environment inside the body.

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Assessment of donor kidney quality is based on clinical scores or requires biopsies for histological assessment. Noninvasive strategies to identify and predict graft outcome at an early stage are, therefore, needed. We evaluated the perfusate of donation after brain death (DBD) kidneys during nonoxygenated hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP).

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The aetiology of Kawasaki disease (KD), an acute inflammatory disorder of childhood, remains unknown despite various triggers of KD having been proposed. Host 'omic profiles offer insights into the host response to infection and inflammation, with the interrogation of multiple 'omic levels in parallel providing a more comprehensive picture. We used differential abundance analysis, pathway analysis, clustering, and classification techniques to explore whether the host response in KD is more similar to the response to bacterial or viral infections at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels through comparison of 'omic profiles from children with KD to those with bacterial and viral infections.

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Unlabelled: Liver splitting allows the opportunity to share a deceased graft between 2 recipients but remains underutilized. We hypothesized that liver splitting during continuous dual hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion (DHOPE) is feasible, with shortened total cold ischemia times and improved logistics. Here, we describe a left lateral segment (LLS) and extended right lobe (ERL) liver split procedure during continuous DHOPE preservation with subsequent transplantation at 2 different centers.

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Oxygenated ex situ machine perfusion of donor livers is an alternative for static cold preservation that can be performed at temperatures from 0 °C to 37 °C. Organ metabolism depends on oxygen to produce adenosine triphosphate and temperatures below 37 °C reduce the metabolic rate and oxygen requirements. The transport and delivery of oxygen in machine perfusion are key determinants in preserving organ viability and cellular function.

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Background: Remote ischaemic conditioning (RIC) is currently being explored as a non-invasive method to attenuate ischaemia/reperfusion injuries in organs. A randomised clinical study (CONTEXT) evaluated the effects of RIC compared to non-RIC controls in human kidney transplants.

Methods: RIC was induced prior to kidney reperfusion by episodes of obstruction to arterial flow in the leg opposite the transplant using a tourniquet (4 × 5 min).

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Liver transplantation is the standard treatment for end-stage liver disease. However, due to the ongoing disparity between supply and demand for optimal donor organs, there is increasing usage of extended criteria donor organs, including steatotic liver grafts. To mitigate the increased risks associated with extended criteria donor livers, ex situ oxygenated machine perfusion (MP) has received increasing attention in recent years as an emerging platform for dynamic preservation, reconditioning, and viability assessment to increase organ utilization.

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Background: There is increasing interest in the use of noninvasive biomarkers to reduce the risks posed by invasive biopsy for monitoring of solid organ transplants (SOTs). One such promising marker is the presence of donor-derived cell-free DNA (dd-cfDNA) in the urine or blood of transplant recipients.

Methods: We systematically reviewed the published literature investigating the use of cfDNA in monitoring of graft health after SOT.

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