Cryopreserved Trachea—A New Arterial Conduit: Early Hemodynamic and Radiographic Performance

Abstract

Synthetic arterial conduits perform well in a vast range of applications; however, there are certain situations where these grafts are not ideal. In an ef fort to find a superior graft, the authors evaluated the use of rat tracheas as cryopreserved homograft arterial conduits.

Twenty-four retired breeder Wistar rats received cryopreserved homograft tracheas as arterial grafts in the infrarenal abdominal aorta. After graft implan tation, the animals were allowed to recover and assigned to groups of 4 animals to be sacrificed at the end of one, two, three, six, twelve and twenty-four weeks. The animals were followed up clinically and then the grafts were evaluated hemodynamically, angiographically, and by gross histolog. Four animals (17%) died owing to ruptured aneurysmal grafts—1 in the two-week group, 1 in the six-week group, and 2 in the twelve-week group. One animal in the six week group had a patent but aneurysmal graft at the time of sacrifice. There were no pressure gradients, graft stenoses, or anastomotic strictures in any of the surviving animals. The authors conclude that the use of cryopreserved tracheal homograft as an interposition graft, while feasible, is associated with an unac ceptably high incidence of aneurysm formation.