Morphological changes of small bowel graft in Wistar rats after preservation injury

In our study we decided to define the harvesting and preservation injury of the graft using Park's scheme for the quantification of morphological changes.

Male Wistar rats (n=25) weighting 322+/-18 g. Harvesting preservation technique: Proximal jejunum (5-7 cm) was flushed with 5 ml of HTK solution and preserved for 0, 1, 6, 9 and 12 hours at 4 degrees C in the same solution. Biopsies for light microscopic evaluations were obtained after the preservation period. Park's scheme was used for the quantitative assessment of histological changes. t-test for two independent samples was used to evaluate statistical significance.

The extent of the preservation injury in the samples obtained at 0 hours was of grade 0 and increased to 1.84 after 12 hours of preservation time. At 0 hours of preservation a degree of 0 (s=0: no changes) was observed, after 1 hour, a degree of 0.50 (s=0.47: slight changes, similar to 0 time), after 6 hours a degree of 1 (0.97, s=0.41: discrete subepitelial oedemas in villi apexes), after 9 hours a degree of 2 (1.74, s=0.64: extension of subeppitelial spaces in villi apexes), and after 12 hours a degree of 2 (1.83, s=0.64: more extension of subepitelial spaces) was observed, except for these findings, there were also changes of grade 3 (massive subepitelial edema and sequestration of the mucosa from lamina propria) in the 12-hour group. A statistically significant (p=0.05) difference was found between all groups except for 9 and 12-hour groups.

HISTOLOGY revealed increasing preservation injury with a increasing duration of preservation and its dynamic. (Tab. 1, Fig. 2, Ref: 6.)