Despite numerous efforts, at present, there is no liver support therapy available with the proven capability to bridge patients over a short-term deterioration of the liver function and improve their survival.
For an overview of liver therapies, please see below. For further literature, please refer to 'Further Reading'.
The only reliable curative therapy is liver transplantation. However, liver transplantation is only available for very few patients due to the limited number of available organs. In addition, most liver patients are ineligible for transplantation due to co-morbidities. In Germany, for example, there are at least 30.000 deaths due to liver failure each year but only 1000 liver transplantations. Therefore, transplantation is and will be in the future only a therapy for a minority of patients. Thus, there is an urgent need for a liver assist device like the Hepa Wash® therapy to reduce the very high mortality and morbidity of liver patients.