Pattern of failure of the homografted canine heart.

T HIS COMMUNICATION presents the pathologic pattern observed in a series of experiments during which the heart of a puppy was homografted into the neck of an adult dog after the method of Mann, Priestley, Markowitz and Yater.' This method of homotransplantation may be termed a "viviperfusion"; that is, vascular anastomoses are performed between the recipient neck vessels and the puppy heart vessels so as to perfuse the coronary circuit of the puppy heart inl vivo. The only work load demanded of the transplant is the pumping of its own coronary circuit return by the right heart. Such a preparation may be convenient for the purpose of studying homograft incompatibility because viability of the graft at any time is easily determined by electrocardiographic means, thereby avoiding the necessity of repeated biopsy.