Simply Adding Oxygen during Hypothermic Machine Perfusion to Combat the Negative Effects of Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury: Fundamentals and Current Evidence for Kidneys

Abstract

The use of high-risk renal grafts for transplantation requires optimization of pretransplant preservation and assessment strategies to improve clinical outcomes as well as to decrease organ discard rate. With oxygenation proposed as a resuscitative measure during hypothermic machine preservation, this review provides a critical overview of the fundamentals of active oxygenation during hypothermic machine perfusion, as well as the current preclinical and clinical evidence and suggests different strategies for clinical implementation.