Doctors are to begin a trial of a drug treatment that could double the time transplanted organs survive in the body. The 20-minute procedure effectively coats donor organs in a protective shield that stops them being rejected by the patient’s immune system.
The treatment is expected to prolong the time that organs remain healthy in patients’ bodies and also increase their shelf-life (保存期限), so they can be stored for longer or transported further before being used. If the treatment works, it could ease the burden on organ transplant services, which face an increasing gap between the supply and demand for donor organs.
People who receive transplants must take drugs to suppress their immune systems, but the body still reacts enough to cause transplants to fail sooner than they should. A healthy transplanted kidney lasts on average only 10 years, around one third of the time it should last. Organs such as hearts and livers fail even sooner. The consequence is that patients who have had one donor organ often need another.
The new treatment, developed by researchers at King’s College London, is based on the defense mechanism healthy organs use to shield themselves from the immune system. Studies suggest the procedure could extend the life of an implanted kidney by around seven years. The scientists believe the treatment will also extend the shelf-life of donor organs, increasing the time they survive outside the body from no more than 24 hours to several days. This could reduce wastage and double the number of organs that work properly once they are transplanted, doctors said. In early tests, only a fifth of organs worked properly after being stored on ice for 16 hours, compared with 50% of those treated with mirococept (药物：米罗西普).
A recent pilot study of the treatment on 16 patients found it was safe to use. Patients who receive donated organs treated with mirococept will still need to take drugs to suppress their immune systems, but doctors said an aim of their research was to see if the use of current drugs, which can increase a patient’s risk of cancer, can be reduced.
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