ARTIFICIAL LIVER KEEPS 2 ALIVE FOR TRANSPLANTS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993                   TAG: 9303100054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Short
ARTIFICIAL LIVER KEEPS 2 ALIVE FOR TRANSPLANTS
While doctors searched for human organ donors, two patients critically ill with liver failure were kept alive by a new kind of artificial liver that contains pig cells.
The unidentified patients were a 36-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy who were near death after their livers were wrecked by exposure to toxic substances.
Their blood was taken out of their bodies and filtered through the external "bioartificial liver" for six to eight hours, giving doctors as much as an extra 24 hours before human livers were found for the two.
Dr. Achilles Demetriou, director of the liver-support unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said they were the first patients on whom the device was used to prevent death until donor organs could be found.
Both patients were treated within the last two weeks, and received liver transplants about 12 hours after they were disconnected from the artificial liver. The boy will go home within two weeks, the woman within a few days, Demetriou said Monday.
More extensive tests on scores of people are planned within a year to determine the bioartificial liver's effectiveness, but Demetriou said: "We have enough data to suggest a beneficial effect."
He wouldn't speculate on when the device would get widespread use.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB