Role of ischemic preconditioning in liver transplant: a review of literature.

Interruption of blood flow and subsequent organ reperfusion lead to significant tissue damage. This well-studied phenomenon is recognized as ischemia/reperfusion injury. Ischemic preconditioning refers to a mechanism in which a prior, short, ischemic period induces some protection against a subsequent prolonged ischemic and reperfusion damage. The mechanisms involved in ischemic preconditioning and its applications for clinical and basic research are discussed in this paper.