Successful temporary machine perfusion of marginal liver grafts early after retrieval or shortly before implantation.

Objectives: The benefit of machine perfusion during storage of liver grafts retrieved after cardiac death should be investigated as applied either at the beginning or near the end of the preservation period.

Methods: Rat livers were explanted 20 min after cardiac arrest of the donor and cold-stored (CS) for 18 h. Other grafts were additionally subjected to 2 h of normothermic machine perfusion (MP) either 3 h after retrieval (early MP) or 3 h before reperfusion (late MP), thus extending total ischemic time to 20 h.