‘New drug treatment may reduce need for liver transplants’

LONDON: Scientists have made a breakthrough which could mean that one day liver transplants are no longer necessary for those with damaged organs.

Acute Liver Failure occurs when a healthy liver is so seriously damaged that it can no longer re-grow and recover, leaving patients in urgent need of transplant.

The liver helps support almost every other organ, by removing toxins as well as making and storing the proteins and energy sources the body requires.Often the damaged liver can re-grow and recover on its own, but when it suffers massive injury, regeneration may fail and even 24 hours without a fully working liver can be life-threatening.