Cyclosporin-A is undoubtedly the most fascinating and advancing immunosuppressive agent discovered in recent years. It has been responsible for improvements in the success of human kidney, liver, heart, lung and bone marrow allotransplantation. Allografts of skin and free flap have the promise of repairing major anatomical defects and restoring function, thereby greatly improving the quality of life. In the hope that cyclosporin-A would be similarly effective for allografts of skin and flap, we investigated full thickness skin allografts and microvascular free flap allotransplantations in rats.
The aim of this study is to investigate the survival of allotransplanted skin and free falp in a rat model using the lowest possible doses of cyslosporine-A and to examine the histological findings at rejection period.
The animals were divided into 4 groups.
Ⅰ. Full thickness skin graft without any immunosuppressive treatment.
Ⅱ. Full thickness skin graft with cyclosporin-A administrtion.
Ⅲ. Microvascular free flap without any immunosuppressive treatment.
Ⅳ. Microvascular free flap with cyclosporin-A administrtion.
The cyclosporin-A is administered daily subcutaneously as a dose of 8 mg/kg for 2 weeks and then is maintained with 8 mg/kg/4 days. Full thickness skin graft is inspected daily after remval of tie-over dressing on day 3 and free flap is also inspected daily from the postoperative 1 day and histologically at postoperative 1, 2, 3 and 5 weeks.
The authors observed the survival of the skin and flap in rats. The results are as follows;
1. The mean survival times(MST) do groupⅠand groupⅢare 6.8 days and 10.7 days, respectively.
2. The must of groupⅡ and groupⅣ are 19.2 days and 24.8 days, respectively. CsA significantly prolonged the survival of allotransplant in bothe vascularized and nonvascularized skin(P<0.05).
3. Untreated group show necrosis with mononuclear cell in filtrations about a 7 days ture over the mean survival timis of untreated group.
With the above results, it can be concluded that cyclosporin-A prolonged the survival of vascularized and nonvascularized skin allotransplant in rats.
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