Heart Transplant Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Heart Transplant, including details on risks, prognosis, procedure, surgery, organ donation.

hDAF porcine cardiac xenograft maintains cardiac output after orthotopic transplantation into baboon--a perioperative study.

Bauer A, Baschnegger H, Abicht JM, Brandl U, Brenner P, Thein E, Hammer C, Reichart B, Peter K, Schmoeckel M, Christ F

Clinic for Anaesthesiology, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany.

BACKGROUND: Only limited data are available on the physiological functional compatibility of cardiac xenografts after orthotopic pig to baboon transplantation (oXHTx). Thus we investigated hemodynamic parameters including cardiac output (CO) before and after oXHTx. METHODS: Orthotopic xenogeneic heart transplantation from nine hDAF transgeneic piglets to baboons was performed. We used femoral arterial thermodilution for the invasive assessment of CO and stroke volume. RESULTS: Baseline CO of the baboons after induction of anesthesia was 1.36 (1.0-1.9) l/min. 30 to 60 min after termination of the cardiopulmonary bypass, CO of the cardiac xenograft was significantly increased to 1.72 (1.3-2.1) l/min (P < 0.01). The stroke volumes of the baboon heart before transplantation and the cardiac xenograft was comparable [14.9 (11-26) vs. 11.8 (10-23) ml]. Thus the higher CO was achieved by an increase in heart rate after oXHTx [75.0 (69-110) vs. 140.0 (77-180)/min; P < 0.01]. Despite the increased CO, oxygen delivery was reduced [256 (251-354) vs. 227 (172-477) ml/min; P < 0.01] due to the inevitable hemodilution during the cardiopulmonary bypass and the blood loss caused by the surgical procedures. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that in the early phase after orthotopic transplantation of hDAF pig hearts to baboons, cardiac function of the donor heart is maintained and exceeds baseline CO. However, in the early intraoperative phase this was only possible by using inotropic substances and vasopressors due to the inevitable blood loss and dilution by the priming of the bypass circuit.

Published 5 October 2005 in Xenotransplantation, 12(6): 444-9.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Heart Transplant Research Today. All Rights Reserved.