State of the art on human hepatocytes: isolation, preservation and clinical use

Purpose of review The offer of liver transplantation to many patients affected by liver failure is limited by organ shortage. The clinical application of human-based liver cell therapies such as bioartificial liver and hepatocyte transplantation might support liver transplantation. In this review we focus on the most recent development in the isolation, preservation and clinical use of human hepatocytes. Recent findings We have performed a Medline search (www.pubmed.gov) focusing on the isolation, cryopreservation and clinical use of human hepatocytes. We have identified 90 papers published from 2002 to 2005; of these, 35 articles have been used for the purpose of this review. Summary At present technical developments and innovations in cell biology allow the isolation of a definite amount of live and functioning human hepatocytes from livers donated by heart-beating and very recently also non-heart-beating donors deemed unusable for organ transplantation. Despite good results in the processof isolation, with viability greater than 70%, the currently available technique of cryopreservation and thawing allows the recovery of only a fraction of the isolated cells. Some case reports and small series preliminarily showed that isolated human hepatocytes could be used for clinical hepatocyte transplantation and bioartificial liver treatment.