TITLE:
Orthotopic Heart Auto-Transplantation in a Swine Model
AUTHORS:
Michael P. Rogers, Gregory Fishberger, Nick Martini, Margaret Baldwin, Lei Wang, Wei Chen, Ruisheng Liu, Lucian Lozonschi
KEYWORDS:
Porcine, Cardiac Surgery, Cardiac Transplantation
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery,
Vol.12 No.9,
September
28,
2022
ABSTRACT: Background and Aim: The porcine heart bears the best
resemblance to the human heart and remains the preferred preclinical model for
anatomical, physiological, and medical device studies. In an effort to study
phenomena related strictly to ischemia reperfusion and donor preservation
protocols, it is essential to avoid the immune responses related to
allotransplantation. Orthotopic auto-transplantation is a unique strategy to
the field of cardiac transplantation for ex
vivo experimentation. Nevertheless, auto-transplantation carries its own
technical challenges related to insufficient length of the great vessels that
are to be transected and re-anastomosed. Methods: A novel method for orthotopic
cardiac auto-transplantation in the porcine model was developed and was described herein. Porcine models were used for ex vivo experimentation of a novel
device to study ischemia reperfusion injury. Results: A total of five porcine
models were used for ex vivo experimentation of a novel device to mitigate ischemia reperfusion injury and
determine effects of donor preservation.
Modifications to routine cardiac transplantation protocols to allow for
successful auto-transplantation are described. Conclusion: Orthotopic cardiac
auto-transplantation in the porcine model is a plausible and technically
feasible method for reliable study of ischemia reperfusion injury and donor
preservation protocols. Here, we describe methods for both direct orthotopic porcine cardiac
auto-transplantations as well as a simplified protocol that can be
substituted for full surgical auto-transplantation for the studies of
preservation of donor hearts.