WASHINGTON, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Researchers from Columbia University and Vanderbilt University demonstrated a novel way to regenerate severely damaged lung outside the body to meet the standards of lung transplantation.
The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications' website, described a platform that can keep the viability of the donor lung and the stability of the recipient for 36 to 56 hours.
Lung transplantation is the only lifesaving therapy for patients with end-stage lung disease, but one in eight donor lungs cannot be used currently for serious injuries. Also, the surgeons can support the donor lungs for only six to eight hours, which is too short for therapeutic intervention to regenerate the injured lungs.
In the new study, the researchers tested to support lungs afflicted by the most frequent injury leading to donor lung rejection when the materials in the stomach enter the respiratory tract.
The platform can maintain the lungs injured in this way outside the body for several days, and those lungs showed evidence of cellular regeneration, according to the study.
The researchers also developed a diagnostic tool for the non-invasive evaluation of the regenerating lung. It revealed that the lungs met the transplant criteria.
They expected their advance would increase the number of lungs suitable for transplant through the recovery of severely damaged lungs that are currently unsuitable for clinical use.
The team is planning to evaluate the functional capacity of the lungs following transplantation, using a clinically relevant large animal model.
