CORRELATION BETWEEN BIOLOGIC VASCULAR GRAFT COMPLIANCE AND PRESERVATION METHODS

V. Reichert¹, Th. Shmitz-Rixen², A. Antonov³, A. Efremov³
¹ Hospital and Polyclinic of Visceral and Vascular Surgery Cologne University, Germany
² Hospital and Polyclinic of Vascular Surgery Frankfurt am Main University, Germany
³ Department of Physiopathology Novosibirsk Medical Institute, Russia

Successful vascular reconstruction is highly dependent nor only on surgical procedure, but on prosthetic properties, including compliance. The aim of the study was to assess modulation effect of preservation methods on compliance of biologic vascular grafts – bovine carotid artery and human great saphenous vein. Biomechanical behavior of vascular segment can be described quite accurately by compliance, defined as fractional diameter change per unit of pressure change. Prostheses were tested in an artificial "blood circulation" system. Graft diameter was estimated by echotracking ultrasound. Data analysis was performed with "Microsoft Excel", "CA Cricket Graph III" and "Stat View 4.0" software packages according to standard statistical methods (means, standard deviation, student t-test). Statistical significance was considered to be p<0.05. Compliance of bovine carotid artery and human great saphenous vein was estimated before and after cryopreservation or preservation in glutaraldehyde. Arterial compliance was higher then venous practically within the whole pressure interval. Preservation in different concentrations of glutaraldehyde caused progressive decline of dynamic alteration of compliance within the tested pressure interval, arterial effect was more prominent. The most nonreactive were grafts treated with 10% glutaraldehyde solution. Cryopreservation of arteries did not change compliance within tested pressure range, whereas cryopreserved veins demonstrated lower compliance at 50 mm Hg and less expressed dynamics throughout the whole pressure range. We suggest cryopreservation to maintain physiologic parameters of biologic vascular grafts most successfully close to native vessel features.

KEY WORDS: vascular graft compliance, bioprosthesis preservation.

P. 58-70

« Back