Treating laboratory animals with an immune molecule before transplant improved the survival of livers that had fatty degeneration.
The supply of healthy livers for transplant is not enough to meet the growing demand. That is why doctors would like to be able to use livers that are in less than prime condition. For instance, steatosis - or fatty degeneration - is present in between 15 to 50 per cent of donor livers. Work carried out by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and others, promises to improve the prospects for transplant with a fatty liver.

Working with laboratory rats, they transplanted both healthy and fatty livers. Without pre-treatment, only 30 per cent of animals receiving a fatty liver survived. But when the organs were pre-treated with a solution containing interleukin-6 (IL-6), a key molecule in the immune system, the percentage surviving shot up to 91.7 per cent. Examination of the transplanted organs showed that there was far less tissue death in those pre-treated with IL-6. This is a promising result which may, in the future, open up the pool of livers for transplant.