Faculty Bibliography

Spontaneous resolution of thrombosis of the systemic arteries is a rarely documented phenomenon. Two patients are described in whom thrombus within the popliteal artery was noted to lyse spontaneously. This resulted in a decrease in ischemic symptoms and was documented by angiography. The spontaneous improvement that occurs in some patients with atherosclerotic femoropopliteal disease may be due to this mechanism as well as to increased flow via collateral vessels

The technical feasibility and rejection characteristics of intrafamilial fox-to-dog xenografts were studied. The results indicate that (1) both lungs of a smaller donor can be successfully transplanted into a single hemithorax of a larger recipient, (2) fox-to-dog lung xenografts are capable of providing total pulmonary function at tolerable right ventricular pressures, and (3) the rejection process of unmodified intrafamilial lung xenografts, was similar to and not more vigorous or more rapid than that of canine lung allografts in untreated recipients

In a series of 148 polytetrafluoroethylene femoropopliteal bypasses performed for limb salvage, 33-month life-table cumulative patency rates for grafts inserted into an isolated popliteal artery segment (91% +/- 5%) were not significantly different from those inserted into a popliteal segment with angiographically better runoff (78% +/- 5%). Similarly, below-knee reconstructions had 3-year patency rates (86% +/- 6%) that were not significantly different from those for bypasses inserted into the popliteal artery above the knee (79% +/- 6%). One clear disadvantage of the isolated popliteal artery segment as a site for distal insertion of the bypass was the increased incidence of limb loss despite a patent reconstruction. This was particularly frequent in diabetics with extensive foot gangrene or infection and could be avoided by a secondary extension of the bypass to a patent distal leg or foot artery

Graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) and failure of donor stem cells to engraft permanently are two major obstacles to successful bone marrow transplantation. We evaluated the effect of a single large dose of anti-lymphocyte serum (ALS) on mice receiving various numbers of H-2 incompatible bone marrow cells. Most animals receiving lethal total body irradiation (TBI) and allogeneic marrow died within 45 days due to GVHD, A/J (H-2a), CBA/J (H-2k), and DBA/1J (H-2q) mice that were given ALS 6 to 24 hr before TBI and C57BL/6 (B6, H-2b) bone marrow 24 hr after irradiation survived in good health for more than 200 days. This result compared quite favorably with mice that received anti-Thy 1.2 and C-treated B6 bone marrow (90% survival at 100 days, 50% survival at 200 days). Engraftment of the allogeneic marrow was dose dependent. At 100 days after TBI, about 30% of the A/J mice given 2 x 10(6) bone marrow cells were complete chimeras, i.e., donor H-2 antigens could be detected on greater than 85% of the peripheral blood mononuclear leukocytes of these mice. However, at a dose of 1 x 10(7) B6 bone marrow cells, 95% of the A/J mice were complete chimeras. Spleen and bone marrow from B6 leads to A/J chimeras and B6 leads to CBA chimeras were unable to induce lethal GVHD in TBI-treated mice that were syngeneic to the recipient. However, these cell preparations caused lethal GVHD in third party mice indicating that the lack of alloreactivity was specific to the strain in which the unresponsiveness was originally induced