[A modified model of cervical heterotopic cardiac transplantation for chronic rejection research]

To establish the modified model of cervical heterotopic cardiac transplantation in rats for investigation of cardiac chronic rejection.Forty healthy male Wistar rats, aged 10 weeks, weighing 250-300 g, were applied as the donor group, and forty healthy male SD rats, aged 10 weeks, weighing 300-350 g, served as the recipient group. The donors' pulmonary artery was anastomosed to the recipients' right external jugular vein by non-suture cuff technique while the donors' innominate artery was anastomosed to the recipients' right common carotid artery by suture microvascular anastomosis. All recipients received cyclosporin to prevent acute allograft rejection.Forty consecutive successful transplantations were performed. Neither anastomosis leakage nor vessel obstruction occurred. The total operation time was 40-50 minutes. The time of cuff vascular anastomosis was 2-3 minutes and that of microvascular anastomosis was 9-12 minutes. All recipients survived for more than 30 days and all allografts were examined at 30 days after the transplantation. Pathological manifestations of allograft vessels were chronic rejection.This modified model of cervical heterotopic cardiac transplantation is simple, practical and highly reproducible and is applicable for investigation of chronic rejection in various organ transplantation studies.