title: Surgical technique of orthotopic liver transplantation in rats: the Kamada technique and a new splint technique for hepatic artery reconstruction.
abstract: Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) in rats is technically feasible and useful for the assessment of clinical liver transplantation and analysis of inflammatory liver diseases. OLT in rats was pioneered by Lee et al. in 1973 using hand-suture techniques of all vessels. This model has not been widely used due to the long operative time and technical demand. The cuff method was introduced by Kamada in 1979, and today, the Kamada technique is the one most commonly used worldwide. However, this technique does not include hepatic artery reconstruction, although this procedure is routinely performed in clinical transplantation. Nevertheless, several techniques for hepatic artery reconstruction in rat OLT have been reported recently, and our group also developed a simple splint technique from recipient right renal artery to donor celiac axis bearing the hepatic artery. In the present article, we describe the Kamada technique, as a standard surgical method for rat OLT. In addition, we also describe our splint technique for hepatic artery reconstruction. Then, we compare the features of Kamada technique and our splint technique for hepatic artery reconstruction and all other surgical techniques currently in use for rat OLT. The widespread use of the rat OLT model should help to provide full assessment of transplant immunology and the mechanism and treatment of inflammatory liver diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology (Analytic Human Pathology), Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Eiichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shimizu
authors.forename: Mikiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Terasaki
authors.forename: Shinobu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kunugi
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nagasaka
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Terasaki
authors.forename: Ryuji
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ohashi
authors.forename: Yukinari
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Masuda
authors.forename: Yuh
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fukuda
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006499:Hepatic Artery / Q000601:surgery*; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013165:Splints; D013536:Suture Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*