Personal experience with the procurement of 132 liver allografts

A single donor surgeon's experience procuring the livers from 132 donors is described. Thirty-seven grafts (28.9%) had hepatic arterial anomalies, 19 (14.4%) of which required arterial reconstruction prior to transplantation. Of the 121 grafts evaluated for early function, 103 grafts (85.2%) functioned well, whereas 14 grafts (11.6%) functioned poorly and 4 grafts (3.3%) failed to function at all. The variables associated with less than optimal function of the graft consisted of donor age (P<0.05), duration of donor's stay in the intensive care unit (P<0.005), abnormal graft appearance (P<0.05), and such recipient problems as vascular thromboses during or immediately following transplantation (P<0.005). A new preservation fluid, University of Wisconsin solution, allowed safe and longer cold storage of the liver allograft than did Euro-Collins' solution (P<0.0001). A parameter of liver allograft viability, which is simple and predictive of allograft function prior to the actual transplant procedure, is urgently needed. © 1989 Springer-Verlag

Recent advances in the study of chemical surfaces and interfaces by specular neutron reflection

The use of specular neutron reflection to study a wide variety of problems in surface and interfacial chemistry is introduced and discussed. Recent developments in neutron reflectometry instrumentation, and their implementation in the design of the SURF reflectometer at the ISIS pulsed neutron source, are described. The design of the SURF reflectometer has been optimised for the surface chemistry of soft matter and new experimental results that exploit the novel features of this second generation neutron reflectometer are presented and discussed in the context of the opportunities for future studies that the technique and the new instrumentation presents. The examples from the broad programme in surface chemistry include surfactant and polymer adsorption at the air/liquid and liquid/solid interfaces, adsorption at the liquid/liquid interface; Langmuir-Blodgett films and liquid crystalline alignment layers, thin solid polymer films and interfaces; liquid mixtures and in situ electrochemistry