BACKGROUND The complement system plays a crucial role in acute xenogeneic reactions after cardiac transplantation. We used an ex vivo perfusion model to investigate the effect of Cp40, a compstatin analog and potent inhibitor of complement at the level of C3. METHODS Fifteen wild-type pig hearts were explanted, cardiopleged, and reperfused ex vivo after 150 minutes of cold ischemia. Hearts we...

UNLABELLED More than 20 years ago, the French Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN, Secretariat of the Fauna and Flora) published the first part of an atlas of the flora of France at a 20km spatial resolution, accounting for 645 taxa (Dupont 1990). Since then, at the national level, there has not been any work on this scale relating to flora distribution, despite the obvious need for a be...

The transient imbalance of a Wheatstone bridge was used to estimate the changes in both membrane and myoplasmic impedance that occurred as an action potential propagated over a 1 mm length of a frog muscle fiber. It was also used to estimate the changes in the membrane impedance alone. Alterations in myoplasmic impedance that might have been predicted were not found.

BACKGROUND Ischemia/reperfusion induced innate immune injury is inescapable in solid organ transplantation. Prolonged cold ischemia exacerbates the primary manifestation of late graft rejection, allograft vasculopathy (AV). The relationship between prolonged cold ischemia and late graft events is unclear and the subject of this study. METHODS Aortic interposition transplants were performed be...

The concept of the ventricular gradient (VG) was conceived in the 1930s and its calculation yielded information that was not otherwise obtainable. The VG was not utilized by clinicians at large because it was not easy to understand and its computation time-consuming. Spatial vectorcardiography is based on the concept of the VG. Its current major clinical use is to identify primary [heterogeneit...

THE REDUCTION in metabolic rate effected by hypothermia constitutes the central tenet of traditional organ preservation. The antithesis of this approach is to provide for metabolic demand during normothermic preservation. This latter strategy has two potential benefits. First, if metabolic requirements are met during preservation, then longer preservation with better posttransplant function may...

Methods The prospective study involved 35 consecutive patients undergoing heart transplantation from 9/2010 to 10/ 2011. Patients were divided into two groups: male graft (n = 20), female graft (n = 15). Troponin I as a marker of myocardial ischemia was measured at intervals: prior to collection of the donor, the recipient before sternotomy, 2h after transplantation, 1st postoperative day (POD)...

The inclusion of the colon in the intestinal graft resulted in worsening patient and graft outcome and increased the incidence of infection and rejection. In this study, we examine the role of ischemia on the barrier function of the epithelium during cold ischemia. Samples were collected from 15 harvested and transplanted human donor grafts (colon, 10; ileum, 6), which were immersed in Universi...

Substantial injury can occur during reoxygenation of previously ischemic tissue in many experimental models, as the result of the generation of oxygen-derived free radicals. To test the antiradical activity of potentially protective compounds in this setting, we developed a simple screening system, applicable to fresh biopsy specimens, in which warm ischemia and reoxygenation of excised tissue ...

OBSTETRIC shock is one of the most serious of the accidents associated with childbirth. Puerperal sepsis is the only condition responsible for a larger proportion of maternal deaths. Out of 141 consecutive deaths occurring in the Belfast Maternity Hospital, and the Royal Maternity Hospital, Belfast, during the ten years, 1927-36, twenty-three, i.e., 16.3 per cent., were due to obstetric shock. ...