Objective To establish a stable model of orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) using donation after cardiac death (DCD) in rat, and to analyze death causes within 24 h after OLT, then explore appropriate treatment strategies for it. Methods The heart arrested 10 min before liver graft harvesting. The rat OLT model using DCD was performed by Kamada two-cuff technique. The operative time and death were recorded. Results One hundred OLT models using DCD were performed successfully within 40 d, the donor operative time was (20±5) min, the recepient operative time was (55±5) min, the anhepatic phase was (20±3) min. Nine rats were died during the operation, including 4 cases of massive haemorrhage, 1 case of anesthesia accident, 1 case of longer anhepatic phase, 1 case of sleeve implant failure, and 2 cases of aeroembolism. Twenty-two rats died within 12 h after the operation, including 6 cases of intestinal necrosis, 6 cases of anastomotic bleeding, 3 cases of pulmonary edema, 4 cases of intraoperative massive haemorrhage, 2 cases of vascular embolism, and 1 case of unexplained death. Nineteen rats died 12–24 h after the operation, including 9 cases of intestinal necrosis, 3 cases of anastomotic bleeding, 2 cases of pulmonary edema, 1 case of intraoperative massive haemorrhage, 1 case of vascular embolism, and 3 cases of unexplained death. Conclusions There are many reasons resulting in early death of rat OLT using DCD, postoperative intestinal necrosis, intraoperative and postoperative bleeding, and postoperative pulmonary edema are main causes. For these reasons, prevention and improvement measures are helpful to establish a stable model and improve a successful rate of rat OLT using DCD.
ObjectiveTo improve the calculation method of the sum of residual hepatic lobe volume and total liver volume after partial hepatectomy in rats.MethodsOne hundred and thirty-five SD rats of different body sizes were divided into five groups by completely random design. The body length, tail length, chest circumference, body weight and length of hepatic triangle lobe of the rats were measured before surgery. Then, according to the classic Higgins and Anderson methods, different lobectomies of liver were performed for each group: middle lobe + left inner lobe, left outer lobe, bilateral papillary lobe, triangular lobe, and right lateral lobe were removed; the proportion of theoretical liver resection in each group was 38.1%, 30.1%, 7.9%, 7.8% and 15.3%, respectively. The actual liver resection volume and residual liver volume were measured after surgery. we finally analyzed statistical differences of liver volume calculated by different indirect methods. In addition, the correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted between the preoperative measured rat body surface parameters and the measured whole liver volume, so as to explore a more simple and accurate volume measurement method.ResultsThe actual proportion of liver resection in each group was 35.0%, 29.2%, 7.1%, 4.9% and 12.0%, respectively. Compared with the residual liver lobe volume actually measured, that calculated by using the indirect method of substitution of the theoretical liver resection proportion was statistically different in all the other four groups except the left outer lobe group. However, there was no statistical difference between the residual liver lobe volume actually measured and that calculated by the actual liver resection proportion in the 5 groups. In addition, in the preoperative measurement of 5 kinds of basic parameters of rats, the body length has the best correlation with whole liver volume, and the regression equation is \begin{document}$\hat Y = - 27.667 + 0.899X$\end{document}.ConclusionsThe liver volume calculated by indirect method using the actual liver resection proportion, compared with the theoretical liver resection proportion, is more accurate. Compared with the body weight, the body length has the better correlation with whole liver volume.