Abstract

Primary graft failure and vascular thromboses are frequent complications of liver transplantation, yet the mechanisms responsible remain unclear. Previous work from our laboratory has shown that hepatic reperfusion injury results in damage at the microvessel level. The present study was performed to determine whether an increased susceptibility of immature animals to microvascular injury during reperfusion might be a contributing factor in these complications. Suckling (35 to 50 g) or adult (250 to 400 g) rats were subjected to 30 or 60 minutes of hepatic ischemia to the left and median lobes followed by 90 minutes of reperfusion. Control animals were sham-operated, time-matched rats. At the end of reperfusion, fluorescein-labeled albumin was injected systemically to mark perfused sinusoids. Frozen sections of liver biopsies were viewed under fluorescence microscopy. The perfused sinusoid density was determined by point count analysis and expressed as the number of intersections of perfused sinusoids with 25 randomly oriented points superimposed on the sinusoid field. In sham-operated rats, at both 30 and 60 minutes, there were no differences between sucklings and adults. After 30 minutes of ischemia and 90 minutes of reperfusion, adults showed a significantly decreased density of perfused sinusoids (4.5 +/- 0.1 intersections per field) when compared with suckling rats (6.0 +/- 0.3 intersections per field, P less than .001). However, in rats subjected to 60 minutes of ischemia followed by 90 minutes of reperfusion, the microvascular injury was more severe in suckling rats (2.7 +/- 0.2 intersections per field) than in adults (4.7 +/- 0.2 intersections per field, P less than .001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-1990

Publication Title

Journal of pediatric surgery

First Page

208

Last Page

213

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