Lung Allografts With Delayed Opposite Pulmonary Artery Ligation

THE FUNCTIONAL competence of allogenic lung grafts has been studied by many methods. These include differential bronchospirometry, occlusion of the contralateral pulmonary artery by a balloon catheter or by ligation, and contralateral pneumonectomy. In previously reported investigations 1,2 untreated dogs were observed to survive from 3 to 96 hours after an allograft of one lung followed immediately by ligation of the opposite pulmonary artery. Buecherl and coworkers 3,4 reported a mean survival of 1.3 days when the right pulmonary artery was ligated immediately after a left lung allograft. Faber et al 5 performed ten such experiments in which the longest survivor lived for five days. Zorzoli and co-workers 6 ligated the opposite pulmonary artery some time after the autograft of one lung and one animal continued to prosper eight months later. Alican and Hardy 7 suggested that delayed ligation of the contralateral pulmonary artery might be better tolerated than immediate