BACKGROUND: Lung transplantation is the definitive therapy for end stage lung disorders. The success of allogenic lung transplantation has led to an increasing shortage of donor lungs from humans, including cadavers, and attention has now turned to transplantation of lungs from other species. However, there are many biological hurdles when using organs from other species because of hyperacute rejection after discordant xenotransplantation. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Pigs (n=6, weighing 20~30 kg each) for the donors and mongrel dogs (n=6, weighing 20~28 kg each) for the recipients were used in this experiment. The left kidney of a pig was perfused to a mongrel dog for 30 minutes through the femoral artery and vein of the dog, and the right kidney was perfused for 30 minutes sequentially. Then, both lungs of the pig were perfused to the dog through the pulmonary artery and left atrium with using the same time intervals. The levels of IgM and IgG were measured from the blood and specimens of the kidney and lung. RESULT:The average levels of serum IgM gradually decreased after the perfusion, but the average levels of serum IgG did not change from before to after perfusion. The immunohistochemical findings revealed decreased deposition of IgG and IgM after the perfusion. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the levels of the serum natural antibodies would be decreased with pre-transplantation xenograft perfusion in the recipient and the occurrence rate of hyperacute rejection after transplantation would be decreased.
Animals ; Antibodies ; Cadaver ; Dogs* ; Femoral Artery ; Fluorescent Antibody Technique* ; Heart Atria ; Heterografts* ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin G* ; Immunoglobulin M* ; Kidney ; Lung ; Lung Transplantation ; Perfusion* ; Pulmonary Artery ; Swine ; Tissue Donors ; Transplantation, Heterologous ; Veins