[The use of jugular veins as carotid artery substitutes in dogs: a comparison between cryopreservation techniques and the tanning process of vein preservation (author's transl)].
Improved surgical techniques and an aging population have allowed surgeons the opportunity to implant vascular prostheses in patients where the run-off bed is somewhat compromised. We have considered the possibility of homograft venous preservation either by tanning or cryopreservation and now report our preliminary experience in the canine model jugular veins of large mongrel dogs were excised and treated in one of two manners. These veins were preserved for either seven or thirty days and inserted as functional segments in the carotid vessels: each dog received a tanned vein on one side and one which has been cryopreserved on the other side, as either an autograft or allograft. After three months the twenty one dogs were sacrified and the grafts recovered and examined for patency and histology. There appeared to be no difference in patency between the autograft and the allograft groups but there were striking differences in patency between the tanned grafts (8/21) and the cryopreserved grafts (19/21). Tanned grafts showed a fibrous hyperplasia at the anastomotic suture line that seemed to be the causative factor for graft thrombosis. Cryopreserved grafts showed sclerotic degeneration in the midportion of the graft: it was found to be more pronounced in the 30 day preservation specimens. The relatively good results, regarding patency, in the cryopreserved group has sparked our interest to investigate further into this process.