Liver Failure Avengers  Houston Methodist Researchers First in World

“The procedure is simple; however, the difficulty lies in identifying the nodes around the liver due to their size—one centimeter or less. They are not easy to find, but with meticulous examination, we’ve been able to successfully perform three procedures,” said Dacha, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine. “All three patients have done well. What we are doing is a unique thing. Only at Houston Methodist in the world.” The first stage of this study is to meet the FDA requirements of safety, tolerance and efficacy. “With our initial patient cohort, we want to ensure that their lymph nodes are functioning like livers,” said Mobley. “Our primary endpoint is safety and tolerability.” Presently, Mobley’s team is monitoring their three patients for a year to note any changes in their baseline liver function with the hope their liver is becoming healthier. If this first-in-class allogeneic regenerative cell therapy obtains FDA approval, it would enable one donated liver to treat dozens of end-stage liver disease patients, which could vastly affect the organ supply and demand imbalance for patients suffering from liver failure. “There are so many patients waiting, and many die waiting,” she said. “There’s such a great need for the success of this study because there aren’t enough organs for the number of patients who are in need. Once we are successful in this study, the number of patients who we will be able to treat and save from liver disease will be immeasurable.” Mobley also noted how this can be a game-changer when treating patients with liver failure who may have additional underlying conditions that can be a barrier to receiving a liver transplant. “Ultimately, my hope is that using liver cells will allow us to rescue patients who are extremely sick and can’t tolerate surgery,” she said. “Theoretically, we could get so good at this that maybe patients wouldn’t need liver transplants, which would be incredible.”