Surgical Technique of Small Bowel Transplantation in a Large Animal Model

An experiment was carried out on pigs during preparation of a clinical project of intestinal transplantation. The objective of this study was to find the best surgical technique of vascular and intestinal anastomosis in different experimental settings (animals with and without immunosuppression) which could have a major impact on everyday veterinary practice. Transplantation was performed in 43 pigs. In the surgical part of the experiment we examined the most suitable surgical technique of vascular anastomosis. A running continuous single-layer seromuscular suture was used for all types of intestinal anastomoses. With regard to vascular anastomosis, the animals were divided into two groups. In group 1 (n = 18) one animal was both donor and recipient of the intestinal graft. Anastomoses were constructed to the mesenteric vessel bed. In group 2 (n = 25), one animal was the graft donor and another was the graft recipient, with revascularization to the central vessel bed. In the second part of the study, we examined the impact of immunosuppressive drug administration on acute cellular rejection and animal survival. Animals that died due to technical failure and reasons unrelated to transplantation were excluded from the evaluation (19 pigs). A total of 24 pigs were included in the second part of th