Exposure of donor liver grafts to prolonged periods of warm ischemia before procurement causes injuries including intrahepatic cholangiopathy, which may lead to graft loss. Due to unavoidable prolonged ischemic time before procurement in donation after cardiac death (DCD) donation in 1 participating center, each liver graft of this center was pretreated with the new machine perfusion "Hypothermic Oxygenated PErfusion" (HOPE) in an attempt to improve graft quality before implantation. HOPE-treated DCD livers (n = 25) were matched and compared with normally preserved (static cold preservation) DCD liver grafts (n = 50) from 2 well-established European programs. Criteria for matching included duration of warm ischemia and key confounders summarized in the balance of risk score. In a second step, perfused and unperfused DCD livers were compared with liver grafts from standard brain dead donors (n = 50), also matched to the balance of risk score, serving as baseline controls. HOPE treatment of DCD livers significantly decreased graft injury compared with matched cold-stored DCD livers regarding peak alanine-aminotransferase (1239 vs 2065 U/L, P = 0.02), intrahepatic cholangiopathy (0% vs 22%, P = 0.015), biliary complications (20% vs 46%, P = 0.042), and 1-year graft survival (90% vs 69%, P = 0.035). No graft failure due to intrahepatic cholangiopathy or nonfunction occurred in HOPE-treated livers, whereas 18% of unperfused DCD livers needed retransplantation. In addition, HOPE-perfused DCD livers achieved similar results as control donation after brain death livers in all investigated endpoints. HOPE seems to offer important benefits in preserving higher-risk DCD liver grafts.

Organs recovered from donors after circulatory death (DCD) suffer warm ischemia before cold storage which may prejudice graft survival and result in a greater risk of complications after transplant. A period of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) in the donor may reverse these effects and improve organ function. Twenty-one NRP retrievals from Maastricht category III DCD donors were performed at three UK centers. NRP was established postasystole via aortic and caval cannulation and maintained for 2 h. Blood gases and biochemistry were monitored to assess organ function. Sixty-three organs were recovered. Forty-nine patients were transplanted. The median time from asystole to NRP was 16 min (range 10-23 min). Thirty-two patients received a kidney transplant. The median cold ischemia time was 12 h 30 min (range 5 h 25 min-18 h 22 min). The median creatinine at 3 and 12 months was 107 µmol/L (range 72-222) and 121 µmol/L (range 63-157), respectively. Thirteen (40%) recipients had delayed graft function and four lost the grafts. Eleven patients received a liver transplant. The first week median peak ALT was 389 IU/L (range 58-3043). One patient had primary nonfunction. Two combined pancreas-kidney transplants, one islet transplant and three double lung transplants were performed with primary function. NRP in DCD donation facilitates organ recovery and may improve short-term outcomes.

The demand for liver transplantation (LT) exceeds supply, with rising waiting list mortality. Utilization of high-risk organs is low and a substantial number of procured livers are discarded. We report the first series of five transplants with rejected livers following viability assessment by normothermic machine perfusion of the liver (NMP-L). The evaluation protocol consisted of perfusate lactate, bile production, vascular flows, and liver appearance. All livers were exposed to a variable period of static cold storage prior to commencing NMP-L. Four organs were recovered from donors after circulatory death and rejected due to prolonged donor warm ischemic times; one liver from a brain-death donor was declined for high liver function tests (LFTs). The median (range) total graft preservation time was 798 (range 724-951) min. The transplant procedure was uneventful in every recipient, with immediate function in all grafts. The median in-hospital stay was 10 (range 6-14) days. At present, all recipients are well, with normalized LFTs at median follow-up of 7 (range 6-19) months. Viability assessment of high-risk grafts using NMP-L provides specific information on liver function and can permit their transplantation while minimizing the recipient risk of primary graft nonfunction. This novel approach may increase organ availability for LT.

Objective: To use the concept of benchmarking to establish robust and standardized outcome references after pancreatico-duodenectomy (PD). Background: Best achievable results after PD are unknown. Consequently, outcome comparisons among different cohorts, centers or with novel surgical techniques remain speculative. Methods: This multicenter study analyzes consecutive patients (2012–2015) undergoing PD in 23 international expert centers in pancreas surgery. Outcomes in patients without significant comorbidities and major vascular resection (benchmark cases) were analyzed to establish 20 outcome benchmarks for PD. These benchmarks were tested in a cohort with a poorer preoperative physical status (ASA class ≥3) and a cohort treated by minimally invasive approaches. Results: Two thousand three hundred seventy-five (38%) low-risk cases out of a total of 6186 PDs were analyzed, disclosing low in-hospital mortality (≤1.6%) but high morbidity, with a 73% benchmark morbidity rate cumulated within 6 months following surgery. Benchmark cutoffs for pancreatic fistulas (B-C), severe complications (≥ grade 3), and failure-to-rescue rate were 19%, 30%, and 9%, respectively. The ASA ≥3 cohort showed comparable morbidity but a higher in hospital-mortality (3% vs 1.6%) and failure-to-rescue rate (16% vs 9%) than the benchmarks. The proportion of benchmark cases performed varied greatly across centers and continents for both open (9%–93%) and minimally invasive (11%–62%) PD. Centers operating mostly on complex PD cases disclosed better results than those with a majority of low-risk cases. Conclusion: The proposed outcome benchmarks for PD, established in a large-scale international patient cohort and tested in 2 different cohorts, may allow for meaningful comparisons between different patient cohorts, centers, countries, and surgical techniques.