Nonwoven polypropylene prosthesis in large abdominal wall defects in rats.

Purpose: To evaluate, in large abdominal wall defects surgically shaped in rats, if a synthetic polypropylene nonwoven prosthesis could be used as a therapeutic option to conventional polypropylene mesh.

Methods: Twenty four (24) Wistar rats were enrolled into three groups. Group 1 (Simulation group) with an abdominal wall defect of 3 X 3 left untreated and Groups 2 and 3, respectively treated with a conventional polypropylene mesh and a polypropylene nonwoven (NWV) prosthesis to cover the breach.

Effects of different tidal volumes in pulmonary and extrapulmonary lung injury with or without intraabdominal hypertension.

Purpose: We hypothesized that: (1) intraabdominal hypertension increases pulmonary inflammatory and fibrogenic responses in acute lung injury (ALI); (2) in the presence of intraabdominal hypertension, higher tidal volume reduces lung damage in extrapulmonary ALI, but not in pulmonary ALI.

Methods: Wistar rats were randomly allocated to receive Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide intratracheally (pulmonary ALI) or intraperitoneally (extrapulmonary ALI). After 24 h, animals were randomized into subgroups without or with intraabdominal hypertension (15 mmHg) and ventilated with positive end expiratory pressure = 5 cmH(2)O and tidal volume of 6 or 10 ml/kg during 1 h.

Anesthetic experimental device for small animal.

Purpose: The difficulty to anesthetize small laboratory animals with vaporizer prompted us to go in search of new materials, and create new techniques. The improved equipment of anesthesia we looked for should be low cost, practical, versatile, and its management serve ethical, teaching, and research purposes.

Methods: The new components of the equipment were: the vaporizer, the unidirectional valve, the glass cylinder filled with water, the flow guidance y-shape tube, the flow regulators, the mask modifications, and another free airway for emergency occurrence.

Use of intraluminal protection in colonic anastomosis in dogs.

Purpose: To test the use of intraluminal protection in colonic anastomosis without intestinal cleansing. The intraluminal liner was fashioned from porcine submucosa preserved in glycerin and then fixed 10 cm anteriorly to the anastomotic site. This technique was compared with the one used in termino-terminal colonic anastomosis without intraluminal protection.

[Development of blood vessels of the greater omentum in the hepatic lobe after vascular ligation. An experimental model in the rats].

Purpose: To verify the development of blood vessels between the greater omentum and the liver in the presence of distinct liver blood intake blockages.

Methods: Two hundred and eighty conventional male Wistar rats were used, divided into 5 groups: control (n=35), laparotomy (n=35); hepatic artery ligature (n=70), ligature of the right-hand branch of the portal vein (n=70); and ligature of both blood vessels (n=70). The last three groups were divided into two subgroups each (n=35), according to the presence or absence of the transposition of the greater omentum onto the right hepatic lobe.