Copyright
©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 28, 2025; 31(40): 112408
Published online Oct 28, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i40.112408
Published online Oct 28, 2025. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v31.i40.112408
Machine perfusion in liver transplantation: A step forward, but still on the runway
Seoung Hoon Kim, Organ Transplantation Center, National Cancer Center, Goyang 10408, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Author contributions: Kim SH contributed to conceived and designed the study, collected and analyzed the data, performed the analysis and wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Seoung Hoon Kim, MD, PhD, Organ Transplantation Center, National Cancer Center, 323 Ilsan-ro, Ilsandong-gu, Goyang 10408, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Received: July 25, 2025
Revised: August 14, 2025
Accepted: September 11, 2025
Published online: October 28, 2025
Processing time: 93 Days and 18.1 Hours
Revised: August 14, 2025
Accepted: September 11, 2025
Published online: October 28, 2025
Processing time: 93 Days and 18.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Machine perfusion (MP) may enhance graft preservation and modulate immune responses, but high costs, logistical barriers, and lack of standardized viability criteria limit its routine use. Long-term outcome data and head-to-head comparisons between perfusion strategies remain scarce, and uptake is low in Korean liver transplant centers. Robust multicenter trials integrating immune profiling and biomarker-guided immunosuppression are needed before MP can be endorsed as standard practice.