The resection of damaged proximal and distal ends of injured vessel always results in a vascular defect which precludes a primary, tension free, end-to-end anastomoses. Thus, microvenous grafts have been widely used in bridging vessel defects. During many vascular surgery, it is often necessary to regain hemostasis after blood flow has resumed through a newly performed vein graft for various reasons. This can be done by reapplication of clamps.
In this experimental model, avulsion injuries were made on the rabbit femoral arteries by vertical traction injury. After resection of damaged vessel ends, microvenous grafts were performed from contralateral femoral veins to fill the defect. 70 rabbits with interpositional microvenous graft repairs were divided into four groups. According to the position of clamp, each 20 rabbits were divided into group A, group B, and group C, and each gorup was subdivided into two groups according to the reclamping time. Group D was composed of 10 rabbits and served as control group.
The patency rates were observed 3 weeks later and the results were as follows;
1. The patencies of the clamped group A(95%), group B(90%), and group C(95%) are comparable to the non-clamped group D(90%).
2. The patency rate at 15 minutes-clamping is 97% and at 30 minutes-clamping is 93%. These results are comparable to grafting in normal vessels.
3. The position of clamps, stasis in the region of the anastomoses and in the grafts, and clamping time up to 30 minutes did not influence the patency rate in damaged vessel after sufficient resection of injured vessel walls.
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