Regenerative Medicine for Liver Disease

For patients who may now wait for whole-liver transplants, Regenerative Medicine is evolving and refining a variety of regenerative liver therapies.

• Treatments focused on extracellular vesicles. The best stem cell hospitals have discovered that extracellular vesicles, which are biological nanoparticles secreted by stem cells, can mitigate tissue damage in the liver and may improve healing and regeneration. Researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine are also working on scalable processing methods to deliver stem cell-derived vesicles to the clinic as a new treatment method for treating liver injury.

• Transplants from living donors. Liver transplants may be needed in the case of liver cancer or advanced cirrhotic liver disease. Since entire livers are in limited supply, Mayo Clinic's campuses in Minnesota and Arizona have been doing living-donor liver transplants for more than a decade, making them one of the country's largest such services.

A part of a donor's liver is harvested and used to repair a patient's diseased liver in a living-donor transplant. The donor's liver regenerates to maximum capacity after treatment, and the patient's fresh liver returns to regular size as well.

Mayo Clinic researchers completed a long-term evaluation of donor results, such as liver recovery and emotional and physical well-being, because the welfare of living donors is critical to the program's sustainability. The study's findings were reassuring, demonstrating that Mayo living liver donors have a good prognosis following donation.

• Supportive equipment for the liver. In recent years, a variety of bioartificial livers — instruments that perform liver functions for patients suffering from liver failure — have been created. Patients may use these machines to help their livers heal from cancer even when waiting for a liver transplant.

The Spheroid Reservoir Bioartificial Liver, developed by researchers at the Center for Regenerative Medicine, is currently being refined. Spheroids of pig liver cells (hepatocytes) are used in this system to replace a patient's liver feature. Human hepatocytes are being studied for use in the system.

• Transplantation of liver cells that are unique to the patient. Existing liver cell transplantation techniques do not utilise patient-specific cells and need immunosuppression. Stem cell for liver disease helps cure troubles. Medicine are working on a personalised solution to liver cell transplantation that utilises the patient's own cells.

Stem cell treatment for liver disease ensures that the best multi-specialty hospital can take care of the disease and the issue.