Liver device helps man survive until transplant
Victoria Colliver, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

(07-01) 18:50 PDT -- Eddie Lopez, a 50-year-old San Francisco man with cirrhosis, went into liver failure in March, arrived at California Pacific Medical Center in a coma and was put on life support.

Lopez was too sick to qualify for a liver transplant, even if a donated organ became available, making his odds of survival limited at best. The odds could have been worse, but the San Francisco hospital he was in happened to be one of only seven institutions nationwide testing a new device designed to take over the functions of the body's liver for a few hours or several days - long enough to give the patient a chance to stabilize.

For decades, researchers have struggled to create an artificial liver that would mimic both the liver's ability to filter toxins as well as create vital chemicals necessary to live. Unlike people with kidney dysfunction, who can rely on a dialysis machine to keep them alive, patients in acute liver failure have fewer options because of the organ's complex nature.

The latest device to be tested is called the ELAD, for extracorporeal liver assist device. It is considered the first to have human liver cells, which are contained in cartridges that the patient's blood passes through to provide the liver's crucial tasks. A once-promising device that used pig liver cells failed to receive Food and Drug Administration approval.

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