title: Establishment of a canine model of acute pulmonary embolism with definite right ventricular dysfunction through introduced autologous blood clots.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To establish a canine model of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) with right ventricular (RV) dysfunction using autologous blood clots and evaluate by echocardiography and contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography (CT).
  
  
  METHODS
  Autologous blood clots formed in vitro were introduced sequentially into the pulmonary arteries of eight healthy mixed-breed dogs while monitoring pulmonary and systemic hemodynamic function. Blood clots were injected until the mean pulmonary artery pressure (MPAP) reached two-three times the baseline pressure, which was maintained up to 1 hour. The RV function was assessed by echocardiography and ECG-gated dual-source contrast CT.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All animals survived the imaging procedure. The post-injection pulmonary angiograms showed extensive PE, and MPAP increased from 16.50±2.45 mmHg to 43.13±4.91 mmHg (P<0.001). On echocardiography, the RV fractional area change decreased from 42.06±3.36 to 27.96±3.54 (P<0.001), and the RV myocardial performance increased from 0.20±0.05 to 0.63±0.16 (P<0.001). On CT, the RV end-systolic volume increased from 11.11±1.81 ml to 24.71±4.60 ml (P<0.001), RV end-diastolic volume from 20.73±2.83 ml to 34.63±5.76 ml (P<0.001), and the four-chamber RV/left ventricular diameter ratio from 0.38±0.07 to 0.81±0.14 (P<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Acute PE with RV dysfunction was established in a large animal model through controlled injection of autologous blood clots, which may be useful for developing and evaluating new therapeutic approaches for acute PE with RV dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: linberzhao@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Lin-Bo
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: zhenyu_jia@sina.com.
authors.forename: Zhen-Yu
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: canhetingyu1989@163.com.
authors.forename: Guang-Dong
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: zhuyinsu1982@163.com.
authors.forename: Yin-Su
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Ultrasound in Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: lookjinglei@msn.com.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jing
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Electronic address: shihb@vip.sina.com.
authors.forename: Hai-Bin
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004285:Dogs; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D011655:Pulmonary Embolism / Q000209:etiology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*; D018497:Ventricular Dysfunction, Right / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging
keywords: Acute pulmonary embolism; Autologous blood clots; Canine model; Right ventricular dysfunction