Immune responses are suppressed in immunologically privileged sites, which may provide a unique opportunity to prolong allograft survival. However, it is unknown whether testicular immune privilege promotes transplantation tolerance. Mechanisms underlying immune privilege are also not well understood. Here we found that islet transplantation in the testis, an immunologically privileged site, ge...

OBJECTIVE In situ transcription of cytokines which are important in the development of cardiac rejection has not been evaluated for diagnosing rejection. The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of in situ reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for sensitive detection of acute cardiac rejection. METHODS We studied interferon (IFN)-gamma and interleukin (IL)-2 expression ...

We describe a prospective survival analysis of 63 consecutive meniscal allografts transplanted into 57 patients. The lateral meniscus was transplanted in 34, the medial meniscus in 17, and both menisci (combined) in the same knee in six. For survival analysis we used persistent pain or mechanical damage as clinical criteria of failure. A total of 13 allografts failed (5 lateral, 7 medial, 1 med...

Bone allografts can store and release high levels of vancomycin. We present our results of a two-stage treatment for infected hip arthroplasty with acetabular and femoral impaction grafting using vancomycin-loaded allografts. We treated 29 patients (30 hips) by removal of the implants, meticulous debridement, parenteral antibiotic therapy and second-stage reconstruction using vancomycin-supplem...

PURPOSE To compare three sterilization methods (autoclave, gamma irradiation and ethylene oxide) over non demineralized lyophilized bone allografts. METHODS Bone allografts were implanted on paravertebral muscles of 21 rats. After 30 days animals were sacrificed and grafts underwent comparative analysis regarding histomorphometric and macroscopic parameters. RESULTS Allografts that underwen...

A rat model of orthotopic corneal graft rejection was used to investigate the effect of depletion of subpopulations of immune cells by treatment with monoclonal antibodies. Though CD4+ cells were not eliminated completely by anti-CD4 monoclonal antibodies there was a profound delay in the rejection times of orthotopic corneal allografts. Furthermore a third of the CD4+ depleted animals failed t...

Although it is widely accepted that there is a hierarchy in the susceptibility of different allografts to rejection, the mechanisms responsible are unknown. We show that the increased susceptibility of H-2K(b+) skin and islet allografts to rejection is not based on their ability to activate more H-2K(b)-specific T cells in vivo; heart allografts stimulate the activation and proliferation of man...

It has been a long-standing dogma that host sensitization against fully-vascularized organ allografts occurs peripherally within the graft itself. In this report we show that donor-derived MHC class II-positive (Ia+) DL migrate rapidly out of mouse cardiac allografts into the recipients' spleens where they home to the peripheral white pulp and associate predominantly with CD4+ T lymphocytes. Th...

PURPOSE To report outcomes of revision anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction using tibial or hamstring tendon allografts and to compare with another study using non-irradiated fresh-frozen bone-patellar tendon-bone allografts. METHODS Records of 12 men and 7 women aged 18 to 53 (mean, 33) years who underwent revision ACL reconstructions using tibial tendon (n=17) or hamstring tendon...

Procedures used by tissue banks in selecting meniscal allografts that will best restore normal contact pressure at the time of surgical implantation into a recipient's knee should be improved. Our objective was to develop regression equations that use dimensions measured from magnetic resonance (MR) images of the contralateral knee to predict values of important meniscal parameters of the injur...