(JP)Doctors drop plan to use pig cells for liver

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20011209a4.htm

 

Doctors drop plan to use pig cells for liver

 

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Doctors at Kyushu University said

Saturday they have dropped a plan to treat patients

with an artificial liver system that uses pig liver

cells due to fears of possible infections.

Keizo Sugimachi, a professor of surgery, said his

research team has withdrawn its application to the

university's ethics committee to proceed with the

plan.

 

The team dropped the plan because it would be

difficult to overcome strict guidelines that the

ethics panel drew up in May to prevent infections in

cases in which animal organs are used in treatments.

 

The guidelines, the first in Japan covering the use of

animal organs to treat patients, oblige researchers to

check the health of patients given artificial livers

as well as their families for the rest of their lives

to determine whether they have contracted any unknown

virus or other disease-causing agent.

 

The guidelines also call for pigs used in operations

to be free from infection, but it is hard to obtain

such animals, Sugimachi said.

 

The team said it will study creating artificial livers

using human liver cells.

 

It had planned to create an artificial liver using pig

liver cells cultured in plastic containers packed with

polyurethane foam.

 

Plasma from the patient's blood would have been passed

through the system to remove ammonia and other toxins.

 

The apparatus was for use by patients awaiting

transplants or others with acute liver disorders.

 

The plan was filed with the ethics panel in 1999.

 

Yusuke Yanagi, a Kyushu University professor of

virology and the chief architect of the guidelines,

said such treatments should be handled carefully

because using animal organs could cause serious

diseases.

 

The decision follows the recent decision to abandon a

similar research plan by a separate team at Nagasaki

University, also because of infection fears.

 

The Nagasaki team has also switched to studying

artificial livers using human cells.

 

The Japan Times: Dec. 9, 2001

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