If your liver stops or fails to function for more than a few days, you may die. Liver failure occurs due to many factors such as trauma which occurs as a result of accidents, drug abuse or diseases such as hepatitis. One common cause of drug overdose which arises as a result of years of maintenance medications or accidentally overdosing on painkillers etc.

In the intervening period, these patients often yield to the toxic buildup of chemicals the liver is unable to filter. Despite more than have a decade research on liver disease, there is no particular virtual help, no stop gap solution etc.

A new research has come up with bio-artificial liver support systems with patients who undergo acute liver failure is under the examination and investigation to analyze the safety. Lead investigator Steven D. Colquhoun at Cedars-Sinai said that the quest for a device that can fill in for the function of the liver, at least temporarily, has been underway for decades and a bio-artificial liver (BAL), could potentially sustain patients with acute liver failure until their own livers self-repair.

As many as 49 sites currently involved in the invention of bio-artificial filters are in the United States. In the bio-artificial liver, which is being designed by therapies including blood is drawn from the patient via a central venous line, and then is filtered through a component system featuring four tubes, each about 1 foot long, which are embedded with liver cells.