Experimental study on angioplastic procedures of the pulmonary artery

To solve problems arising during angioplastic procedures of the pulmonary artery, experimental studies using canine lungs were performed. Since the lung has dual adjacent components, i.e. pulmonary arteries and bronchi, sleeve resection of the pulmonary artery should be limited in length when not combined with bronchoplastic procedures. In such cases we used Gore-Tex as an artificial graft for replacement of the resected pulmonary artery and obtained good results. During the angioplastic procedures the main pulmonary artery and/or bronchus may be completely occluded, hence the risk of acute pulmonary edema in the remaining lung increases with long operations. From the results of this experiment it appears that the time required for operation with interruption for both perfusion and ventilation is about 2 hours.