The use of micro pulse oximetery as a new detector of tissue perfusion in solid organ transplantation

Vascular complications are a frequent cause of transplant failure; angiography, duplex sonography, computerized tomography (CT) scan, CT-angiography and microdialysis are the methods that were suggested for the detection of arterial obstruction after transplantation. In this study, we suggest a new method. Eight healthy adult dogs were included in the trial. All cases were operated by the same surgeon and the liver, pancreas, spleen, kidney and bowel tissue were exposed. The probes of the device, which were designed for this study, were inserted on the organ parenchyma. The device, a neonatal pulse oximeter, has two probes that were fixed by a holder in front of each other; the distance between the probes was changeable via a spring. The pulse and the oxygen saturation of the tissue were measured initially. Following this, by inducing ischemia with vessel clamping, the pulse and the oxygen saturation were measured again. The collected data were analyzed under the supervision of a statistician. In the liver and spleen, we could not detect a clear pulse wave and oxygenation. On the other hand, in the pancreas, kidney and bowel, we detected a clear curve of oxygenation and pulse in all cases. Obstruction caused significant changes: the pulse was not detected and the oxygenation decreased significantly. Our study suggests that with early diagnosis, the surgeons can detect arterial occlusion immediately and early intervention may decrease parenchymal damage. This study is the first experience in this field, and these findings need to be validated with further studies.