Life-changing research could quickly identify patients in need of vital liver transplant

Research conducted by three universities in America could save lives by enabling quicker and more efficient identification of hospitalisation of patients who need liver transplants.

Published yesterday, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas Southwestern and the Medical University of South Carolina found that a serum protein called carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) helps to predict whether patients who have been hospitalised with acute liver failure (ALF) are at risk of dying without receiving a transplant.

Universities discovered the protein through analysing blood samples and medical records of 270 patients that had been admitted to hospital.

‘We still need to validate these results in more patients to further confirm that CPS1 levels predict ALF from causes other than acetaminophen [a pain relief drug], but this has the potential to be a highly valuable prognostic and clinical management tool for acetaminophen and other causes of liver failure,’ said Bishr Omary, Senior Author of the Study, which has been published in the online journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

The findings have come at a good time as findings from the New England Journal of Medicine have discovered around 3,000 Americans suffer acute liver failure each year and the drug acetaminophen is the most common cause.

However, other causes of live failure include prescription medications, herbal supplements, autoimmunity and viruses such as hepatitis A and B.

On a positive note, experts found most patients with acetaminophen-associated ALF recover without a transplant. As this is good news, it is also necessary as the need for transplant organs far exceeds the supply – of transplant livers, 214 of 9,528 went to patients with acute liver failure last year.  

Image: Julien Tromeur