title: Small-calibre vascular grafting into the rat abdominal aorta with biodegradable prostheses.
abstract: 130 Male Wistar rats, 2-3 months old and weighing 250-350 g were operated on to implant biodegradable small-calibre vascular prostheses (length 10 mm; internal diameter 1.5 mm) in their infrarenal abdominal aorta. The mean operation time was 40 min, the mean aortic cross-clamping time 25 min. The early patency rate was 100%, the late patency rate was 97.7%, and the operative mortality was 3.1%. Microscopical examination of the biodegradable prostheses from 1 h up to 1 year after implantation demonstrated reproducible morphological results; in these prostheses a new arterial wall regenerated which had a structure very similar to the normal arterial wall. It was concluded that the rat is an appropriate experimental laboratory animal for testing new types of small-calibre vascular prostheses.
authors.affiliation: Central Animal Laboratory, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: H L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Bartels
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: van der Lei
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001012:Aorta, Abdominal / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D001807:Blood Vessel Prosthesis / Q000662:veterinary*; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains / Q000601:surgery*; D012038:Regeneration