Pig hearts from the abattoir: Another approach to an isolated perfusion model

摘要

In medical research it is often necessary to perform experiments with isolated perfused animal organs. Such models are ideal for studies on living organs in which influences of nervous system or hormones are unrequested. In the past some efforts were made in evolution of perfusion models using organs from the abattoir, partly with more or less encouraging results. While organs from the abattoir are cheap, the costs of the perfusion systems are usually high. Therefore, our aim was to develop a less fancy model of isolated perfused abattoir pig hearts for use in basic research. For this purpose we used material which is commonly applied in cardiac surgery and therefore easy to get. Our efforts resulted in a hemoglobinfree perfused pig heart model which is used in our studies on detecting subcellular structures. Hemoglobinfree perfusion is ideal if the strong absorption characteristics of hemoglobin are unwanted, because of screening structures with slighter optical characteristics. In the paper the model will be described in detail and the advantages and disadvantages will be discussed.