The Simple Maneuver to Safely Extend the Anhepatic Time to 30 Minutes for Rat Liver Transplantation
Abstract Background: Orthotopic rat liver transplantation (OLT) is widely used; it remains to be challenging although many renovations have been made. Methods: For tolerance induction, we performed OLT including whole graft OLT from close Sprague Dawley (SD) rat to SD (whole graft group, control group, n=21) and 30 minute anhepatic time (AHT) group (AHT group, n=11). For good outcomes of AHT group and generalization of this maneuver, partial OLT was performed from 50% Lewis allograft to Brown Norway (BN) rats to induce tolerance (half graft group, n=28), Cyclosporine A was injected once daily for 14 days. 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 and tolerance group, 30-day survival rate was 72.7% (8/11), 64.3% (18/28), the causes of death were diverse. There were no differences in survival in 3 groups (p=0.289). Conclusion: The anhepatic time can be extended simply through the change of clamping the diaphragm, which facilitates its application in the research.