The Use of Smartphone for Liver Graft Biopsy Assessment at the Time of Procurement

Abstract

Liver biopsy at procurement plays a crucial role in the acceptance of marginal grafts. Most organ procurements occur in hospitals that neither perform transplants nor have an experienced in-house pathologist after regular working hours. Conventional professional telepathology equipment could be used to circumvent this problem but are costly and often not widely available. By using a smartphone to acquire and transmit liver biopsies in real time to expert hepatopathologists, telepathology may potentially expedite and improve the assessment of liver graft quality. This report is the first to combine both telepathology and expert pathologist evaluation to liver transplantation.