The simple surgery to safely extend the anhepatic time to 30 minutes for rat liver transplantation

Abstract Background Orthotopic rat liver transplantation (OLT) is widely used, it remains complicated although many renovations have been made. Methods OLT was performed for tolerance induction, including whole graft OLTs from close male Sprague Dawley (SD) rat to male SD (whole graft group, n = 21) and 30 minute anhepatic time group (AHT group, n = 11), OLT was performed from 50% male Lewis allograft to male Brown Norway (BN) rats to induce tolerance (half graft group, n = 28), Cyclosporine A was injected once daily for 14 days. Results For whole graft group, 30-day survival rate was 85.5% (18/21), the reasons of death were gas embolism due to the missed suturing in 2 cases, blood loss in 1 case. For AHT group, 30-day survival rate 72.7% (8/11), the causes of death were respiratory failure in 1 case, unknown in 2 cases. For tolerance group, 30-day survival rate was 64.3% (18/28), the reasons of death were diarrhea in 4 cases, wound dehiscence in 6 cases. There were no differences in survival in 3 groups (p = 0.289). Conclusion The anhepatic time can be extended simply through the change of clamping the diaphragm, which facilitates its application in the research.