Intraoperative ECMO results in superior survival when compared with transplantation without any extracorporeal support. The concept of prophylactic postoperative ECMO prolongation is associated with excellent outcomes in recipients with pulmonary hypertension and in patients with questionable graft function at the end of implantation.

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The perception that transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells can confer tolerance to any tissue or organ from the same donor is widely accepted but it has not yet become a treatment option in clinical routine. The reasons for this are multifaceted but can generally be classified into safety and efficacy concerns that also became evident from the results of the first clinical pilot trials. In comparison to standard immunosuppressive therapies, the infection risk associated with the cytotoxic pre-conditioning necessary to allow allogeneic bone marrow engraftment and the risk of developing graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD) constitute the most prohibitive hurdles. However, several approaches have recently been developed at the experimental level to reduce or even overcome the necessity for cytoreductive conditioning, such as costimulation blockade, pro-apoptotic drugs, or Treg therapy. But even in the absence of any hazardous pretreatment, the recipients are exposed to the risk of developing GVHD as long as non-tolerant donor T cells are present. Total lymphoid irradiation and enriching the stem cell graft with facilitating cells emerged as potential strategies to reduce this peril. On the other hand, the long-lasting survival of kidney allografts, seen with transient chimerism in some clinical series, questions the need for durable chimerism for robust tolerance. From a safety point of view, loss of chimerism would indeed be favorable as it eliminates the risk of GVHD, but also complicates the assessment of tolerance. Therefore, other biomarkers are warranted to monitor tolerance and to identify those patients who can safely be weaned off immunosuppression. In addition to these safety concerns, the limited efficacy of the current pilot trials with approximately 40–60% patients becoming tolerant remains an important issue that needs to be resolved. Overall, the road ahead to clinical routine may still be rocky but the first successful long-term patients and progress in pre-clinical research provide encouraging evidence that deliberately inducing tolerance through hematopoietic chimerism might eventually make it from dream to reality.

SummaryBackgroundLiver disease impacts on hepatic synthesis of lipoproteins and lipogenesis but data on dyslipidemia during disease progression are limited. We assessed the patterns of dyslipidemia in (i) different liver disease etiologies and discriminated (ii) non-advanced (non-ACLD) from advanced chronic liver disease (ACLD) as it is unclear how progression to ACLD impacts on dyslipidemia-associated cardiovascular risk.MethodsPatients with alcoholic liver disease (n = 121), hepatitis C (n = 1438), hepatitis B (n = 384), metabolic/fatty liver disease (n = 532), cholestatic liver disease (n = 119), and autoimmune hepatitis (n = 114) were included. Liver stiffness ≥15 kPa defined ACLD. Dyslipidemia was defined as total cholesterol >200 mg/dL, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol >130 mg/dL and triglycerides >200 mg/dL.ResultsAcross all etiologies, total cholesterol levels were significantly lower in ACLD, when compared to non-ACLD. Accordingly, LDL-cholesterol levels were significantly lower in ACLD due to hepatitis C, hepatitis B, metabolic/fatty liver disease and autoimmune hepatitis. Triglyceride levels did not differ due to disease severity in any etiology. Despite lower total and LDL cholesterol levels in ACLD, etiology-specific dyslipidemia patterns remained similar to non-ACLD. Contrary to this “improved” lipid status in ACLD, cardiovascular comorbidities were more prevalent in ACLD: arterial hypertension was present in 26.6% of non-ACLD and in 55.4% of ACLD patients (p < 0.001), and diabetes was present in 8.1% of non-ACLD and 25.6% of ACLD patients (p < 0.001).ConclusionLiver disease etiology is a major determinant of dyslipidemia patterns and prevalence. Progression to ACLD “improves” serum lipid levels while arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus are more prevalent. Future studies should evaluate cardiovascular events after ACLD-induced “improvement” of dyslipidemia.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s00508-019-01544-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Transfer of recipient regulatory T cells (Tregs) induces mixed chimerism and tolerance in an irradiation-free bone marrow (BM) transplantation (BMT) model involving short-course co-stimulation blockade and mTOR inhibition. Boosting endogenous Tregs pharmacologically in vivo would be an attractive alternative avoiding the current limitations of performing adoptive cell therapy in the routine clinical setting. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) potently inhibits Treg differentiation and its blockade was shown to increase Treg numbers in vivo. Therefore, we investigated whether IL-6 blockade can replace adoptive Treg transfer in irradiation-free allogeneic BMT. Treatment with anti-IL-6 instead of Treg transfer led to multi-lineage chimerism (persisting for ~12 weeks) in recipients of fully mismatched BM and significantly prolonged donor skin (MST 58 days) and heart (MST > 100 days) graft survival. Endogenous Foxp3+ Tregs expanded in anti-IL-6-treated BMT recipients, while dendritic cell (DC) activation and memory CD8+ T cell development were inhibited. Adding anti-IL-17 to anti-IL-6 treatment increased Treg frequencies, but did not further prolong donor skin graft survival significantly. These results demonstrate that IL-6 blockade promotes BM engraftment and donor graft survival in non-irradiated recipients and might provide an alternative to Treg cell therapy in the clinical setting.