Repairing Liver Damage without Surgery Using Stem Cells from Tonsils

September 26, 2014

(Medical News Today) – The liver provides critical functions, such as ridding the body of toxins. Its failure can be deadly, and there are few options for fixing it. But scientists now report in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces a way to potentially inject stem cells from tonsils, a body part we don’t need, to repair damaged livers – all without surgery.  Byeongmoon Jeong and colleagues point out that currently, the only established method for treating liver failure or severe cases of liver disease is complete or partial transplantation. But the need is much greater than the number of available organs.