The liver survives outside the body for several days.

Using a special machine, surgeons claim to have successfully transplanted a donor liver that had been kept warm and alive outside the body for three days.

The normothermic perfusion method provides the organ with a continuous blood supply, which experts say is superior to the traditional method of freezing it.

The Swiss team suggested that viability could be extended to 10 days in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

A year later, the patient who received the warm liver is doing well.

Experts hope that the breakthrough will help reduce the number of donor organs that must be discarded, because preserving tissues and organs at low temperatures can cause significant cell damage.

Extending the time a donor liver can be stored would also allow for greater flexibility in the timing of the transplant operation. Cooled livers are only good for 12 hours.

The machine can also deliver drugs or other nutrients, in addition to blood, to ensure that the organ is in the best possible condition before the transplant.

The recipient of the liver, which was placed in the perfusion machine for 68 hours, required a new one due to cancer.

His transplant surgery took place four days after the donor organ was extracted from its original owner, a 29-year-old woman who died in May 2021.

The man was discharged from the hospital 12 days after the surgery.

More research is needed, according to his doctors.