The Evaluation of Fetal Hepatocyte Transplantation for Metabolic Support

Abstract

Severe liver diseases threat the life and have a high mortality rate (Dixit, 1993). The most effective therapy is orthotopic liver transplantation (Hillan et al., 1989). Especially in the childhood period, donor scarcity is the major problem (Vacanti, 1988). As an alternative approach., hepatocyte transplantation is being widely studied (Aiken et al., 1990). Fetal liver cell transplantation, with many advantage, have been used and preferred as bridge transplantation (Dixit, et al., 1993) as these cells give more time and a choice for regeneration (Demetriou et al., 1986). In this study, we evaluated the metabolic and survival efficiency of intrasplenic fetal hepatocyte transplantation in the surgically induced acute hepatic failure in rats.