A novel animal model of abdominal aortic aneurysm by mechanical injury

The present study established a novel and reproducible animal model to study abdominal aortic aneurysms. In total, 22 adult Lewis rats underwent a procedure to produce mechanical injuries at the infrarenal aorta which was opened temporarily. The aortas were injured 6 times and repaired. Those rats were divided into 2 groups and the aortic aneurysm tissue was harvested after 42 (6-week group) or 63 (9-week group) days and evaluated for the progression of aortic aneurysms. In the 6-week group, changes in the aneurysm were observed in 6/10 (60%) rats and the mean maximum diameter of the aorta demonstrated a 119% increase in size from the baseline measurement. In the 9-week group, changes in the aneurysm were observed in 8/11 (88%) rats and the mean maximum diameter of aorta demonstrated a 133% increase in size. Additional findings from the aortic aneurysm tissue were found microscopically, including the destruction of the tunica media and the elastic fiber. The present study demonstrated that this novel animal model for the development of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) produced by mechanical injury may have high reproducibility and similar gross and microscopic morphology to humans. This model could be helpful to investigate the treatment of AAAs.