Development of small-caliber vascular grafts for free tissue transfer

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This research reported that experimental study of small-caliber vascular grafts shown 1-2mm in diameter could be utilized in the vascular pedicle of the free tissue transfer as a donor for reconstruction after malignant tumor resection. The small-diameter artificial blood vessel was made of the polyurethane (l.4mm inside diameter, 15mm length), and the inner surface was coated with 2-Hydroxyethyl methacrylate-Styrene block-copolymer and Argatroban contained urethane solution. The experimental model in the rabbit was an inferior epigastric flap, which had the vascular pedicle of the femoral and inferior epigastrice artery and vein. And it anastmosed to the renal artery and vein which were located in the retroperitoneal space. The transplantation of the epigastric flap was performed using the artificial vessels as connectors of flap and renal side. The following experiments were done : Acute experiments by non-coated and coated artificial vessls (n=3) and chronic experiments (n=17) by coated grafts. As a result in acute erxperiment, non-coated artificial vessel was thrombosed in all cases within 3 hours. In the chronic experiment, 1 week flap survival existed in 10 flaps (59%) in the 17 cases. The grafts of both artery and venous side were patent in 3 cases. The angiogenesis between the flap and recipient bed of retroperitoneum was observed to occur within on week. Since in this model the graft was just inserted and fixed to the blood vessel, the thrombosis based on the endothelium hyperplasia in artificial blood vessel occurred and occluded. However, it seemed to show the future prospect, which applied small-diameter artificial blood vessels to free tissue transfer in order to decrease the sacrifice of the donor site.