Abstract
In spite of progress in modern intensive therapy liver failure still represents a severe life-threaten state for patients.There is no sufficient number of grafts for liver transplantation,which is the optimal therapy.Therefore it is necessary to develop effective artificial liver support device,which would be able to replace temporarily all missing liver functions (metabolic,regulatory,synthetic and biotransformation).The paper depicts bioartificial liver systems using hepatocytes as a most important functional part of this device.Advantages and disadvantages of different cell types (human hepatocytes,pig hepatocytes,Hep G2 cells-subpopulation of human hepatoblastoma cells C3A) are described as well as the actual therapeutical experience with different hybrid systems (ELAD-Extracorporeal Liver Assist Device,BAL-Bioartifical liver,HepatAssist,and MELS-Modular Extracorporeal Liver System).