Heart and kidney transplantation in the rat using a mixed cuff-stent microsurgical technique

A method has been described for heart and kidney transplantation in rats using a mixed cuff-stent microsurgical technique. The advantages of the method include reduction of total ischemia time to an average of 11 minutes for heart grafting and 6 minutes for kidney grafting, provided donor and recipient operations are performed simultaneously; ease of performance and short training period, which allows the method to be employed by transplantation novices and to be extended to laboratories that lack experienced microsurgeons; and the possibility of applying the method to transplantation of other vascularized organs in the rat.