Recent Advances in Organ Preservation Solutions and Methods for Using in Liver and Kidney Transplantation

The organ transplantation has been developed due to recent advances in transplantation surgery. The method of preservation and the type of preserving solution are determining factors in the outcome of the transplantations. In this review article, we evaluated the process of organ preservation, and compared the employed storage solutions.

The relevant articles published up to the end of 2019 were collected by searching in PubMed, Science Direct, and Google Scholar databases using terms “Preservation Solutions”, “Organ Transplantation”, “Kidney”, “Pancreas”, and “Liver”.

The aim of developing preservation solutions is to minimize the damage through minimizing the cellular edema; decreasing the function of the membrane pumps, and supplying enough energy for viable cells. Additionally, the two problems of organ shortage for transplantation and time period from taking the organ in the procurement organization to delivering it to the transplant center are enough to encourage scientists to improve preservation methods and solutions for prolonging organ preservation time. The main building blocks of preservation solutions are electrolytes, antioxidants, and saccharides. Currently, there are many efforts to optimize solutions by employing cell death inhibitors such as specific siRNA for caspase 3 and caspase 8.

 In spite of all the efforts, these solutions do not have enough efficiency in preserving the organs for long periods. Hence, it is necessary to optimize preservation methods and solutions’ features to improve their functions.