title: [Experiences of establishing an abdominal heart transplantation model in rats].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To review the experiences and key factors of establishing an abdominal cardiac transplantation model in rats at National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
  
  
  METHODS
  Dark Agouti rats served as donor while Brown Norway rats as recipient. Cardiac transplantations were performed with a modified version of heterotopic cardiac transplantation. Proficiency was defined as 20 consecutive operations with < 15% mortality and no significant major co-morbidities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We performed 10 donor harvest-alone operations and 70 transplantations to reach the proficiency level. The survival rate of the last 20 consecutive surgeries was 95%. The mean total operative duration was 55 min and mean ischemic time of donor hearts 35 min.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To ensure a consistently high operative success rate, a surgeon must not only be proficient in micro-surgical skills, but also closely follow the standardized training procedures and strictly observe the animal care and use guidelines.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Huadong Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200040, China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yun-qing
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Solomon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D011914:Rats, Inbred BN; D016042:Transplantation, Heterotopic