A morphometric study of vein graft intimal hyperplasia.
The extent of intimal hyperplasia in veins grafted into arteries is a major determinant of graft survival. The development of intimal hyperplasia in experimental iliolumbar vein grafts in iliac arteries of 36 rats was followed by light microscopy between 2 and 140 days after grafting. The increase in mean thickness of the graft intima was most rapid from 2 to 21 days and then more gradual to reach a maximum at 140 days, when the graft intima was the same thickness as the combined intima and media of the control artery. Grafts aged between 15 and 28 days showed a significant thickening at the anastomosis, but this was not evident in older grafts. Our results quantitate the arterialization of a vein graft and show that there is no significant anastomotic intimal hyperplasia in mature grafts in this model.
D000818:Animals; D001158:Arteries / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D006085:Graft Survival; D006965:Hyperplasia; D007083:Iliac Artery / Q000601:surgery; D007084:Iliac Vein / Q000601:surgery; D008161:Lumbosacral Region; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D013997:Time Factors; D014680:Veins / Q000473:pathology / Q000637:transplantation*