MURRAY — A brand new 167-pound piece of medical tools has given Sophie Hansen an opportunity to stay once more.”My journey with liver illness began once I was 3 years previous,” the 22-year-old mentioned.Hansen, from Bountiful, has main sclerosing cholangitis, a power, incurable liver illness. When her well being began to say no at age 11, her finest shot at life was a liver transplant — she spent 4 years ready to get one.After the transplant, she traveled world wide and began a job as a researcher within the transplant division at Main Kids’s Hospital and Intermountain Well being.”This organ allowed me to stay a tremendous life as a young person,” Hansen mentioned. However it did not final. Her liver illness got here again, even sooner and extra aggressive than earlier than, and he or she was again on a transplant ready record unsure how a lot time she had.”It is both a transplant or dying,” mentioned Dr. Richard Gilroy, Intermountain Well being’s liver transplant medical director. “We have a tendency to not record people who find themselves going to get higher.”This time on the ready record was totally different, Hansen mentioned. As a substitute of 4 years, she solely needed to wait 33 days for a transplant.The distinction wasn’t her well being or a sudden uptick in donors — it was Intermountain Well being’s new OrganOx. The machine maintains donated livers in a “near-physiological state exterior the physique,” based on a press launch.OrganOx works by preserving the liver at physique temperature and pumping oxygenated blood, antibiotics and sugars via it, in the identical means a wholesome physique would. In these situations, the organ will be safely maintained for as much as 24 hours, versus the mere six hours organs sometimes have when saved on ice.The machine additionally assesses the viability of specific livers. Some livers, which might by no means have been beforehand thought-about for donation, now make the minimize.In a scientific trial, preservation with the machine resulted in 50% fewer discarded organs in comparison with static chilly storage and 20% extra transplanted livers, based on OrganOx’s web site.With this machine, Intermountain Well being has the shortest wait occasions within the nation for a liver transplant — most sufferers wait simply 22 days.”That is probably life-changing for the hundreds of sufferers on the nationwide ready record for a liver transplant, and the greater than a thousand sufferers a 12 months who die ready for a liver to turn out to be accessible,” Gilroy mentioned.On Feb. 13, Hansen obtained her second transplant. At this time, she’s a senior on the College of Utah learning liver transplantation. She likes mountaineering and spending time with mates, and simply two weeks in the past, her first analysis paper was revealed.”I’ve had the possibility to stay once more, two separate occasions,” Hansen mentioned.OrganOx does not simply give individuals second possibilities — it improves their possibilities. Sufferers with a liver preserved by the machine spend much less time within the working room and hospital, Dr. Jean Botha mentioned. It additionally creates entry to transplants for sufferers who had been beforehand too far-off to get them.Plus, Gilroy added, the machine might enhance medical employees efficiency. Beforehand, all transplants had been carried out between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., often on the finish of an extended day for surgeons. OrganOx permits employees to schedule transplants at optimum hours, as a substitute of racing in opposition to the clock.”I believe we have now reached a brand new daybreak in organ transplantation,” Botha mentioned.