Reinforcing the pulmonary artery autograft in the aortic position with a textile mesh: a histological evaluation

Abstract

Reinforcing an interposition pulmonary autograft in the descending aorta with a macroporous mesh showed promising results in limiting autograft dilatation in this sheep model. Histological evaluation revealed atrophy of the smooth muscle cell and consequently thinning of the vessel wall within the mesh support.

Mechano-biological adaptation of the pulmonary artery exposed to systemic conditions

“…7). These results are in line with our previous studies [27][28][29][30] . In contrast, a patient study examining the capacity of the macroporous material to withstand further dilatation of a weakened vessel wall does not mention atrophy of the SMC 31 .…”

“…Overall the meshes seemed well incorporated in all sheep, again in line with our previous studies [27][28][29][30] . Nevertheless, since the mesh material was not personalized for each surgery, some areas presented gaps between the mesh and the native wall which were filled with edema or proliferating, but inactive SMC.…”

Numerical simulation of arterial remodeling in pulmonary autografts

“…When studying the experiments reported in [31], histology on the remodelled autograft showed an inhomogeneous pattern across the circumference of the vessel. Some zones showed evident thickening with new matrix deposition, whereas other zones had no thickening at all.…”

“…As a test case for the algorithm described in the previous section, we use the results obtained by [10] and [31]. In this experimental study, a section of the pulmonary autograft was placed in the descending aorta in two sheep.…”

“…Two images of remodeled autograft are shown, taken from different locations on the same transversal plane, to indicate the inhomogeneous remodeling pattern. Further details can be found in[31]…”