Prevention and treatment of ischemia of the liver.

Various modalities have been proposed to protect the liver from injury during the ischemic period or after reperfusion. Most of the drugs were administered before the onset of ischemia, but a beneficial effect of post-treatment was reported for MP, dopamine and ATP-MgCl2. Previous studies were mainly performed upon experimental animals, but hypothermia and steroids were used to protect the liver from ischemic injury in patients as well. However, no controlled clinical trials exist demonstrating the efficacy of any type of prevention or treatment in ischemia of the human liver.