Simple maneuver for suprahepatic vena cava anastomosis in rat liver transplantation

Abstract Background Orthotopic rat liver transplantation (OLT) is preferentially used to study transplant immunology; it remains challenging due to higher complications associated with 26-minute anhepatic time ceiling, here we safely extended the anhepatic time to improve success of OLT. Methods Initially we performed OLT including whole graft OLT from inbred Sprague Dawley (SD) rat to SD (whole graft group, control group, n=21) and 30 minute anhepatic time (AHT) group (AHT group, n=11) to master this procedure. For generalization of this maneuver, partial OLT was performed from 50% Lewis allograft to Brown Norway (BN) rat to induce tolerance (half graft group, n=28), Cyclosporine A was injected once daily for 10 days in this group. Results For whole graft group, 30-day survival rate was 85.5% (18/21), the reasons of death were gas embolism due to the missed suturing in 2 cases, blood loss in 1 case. For AHT group, 30-day survival rate was 72.7% (8/11), one recipient died from respiratory failure intra-operatively; two deaths were biliary leakage in 14 days. There were no differences in survival between whole graft group and AHT group ( p =0.368). For tolerance group, 30-day survival rate was 82.0% (11/61), and the causes of death were diverse and recorded. Conclusion The anhepatic time can be extended to 30 minutes simply through the change of clamping the diaphragm, which facilitates LT and improves its success good for the basic research.