Laboratory investigationDevelopment of a Large Animal Model of Cirrhosis and Portal Hypertension Using Hepatic Transarterial Embolization: A Study in Swine
Section snippets
Animal Care
The institutional animal care and use committee approved the current study. Animals were maintained in facilities approved by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care and in accordance with current United States Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, and National Institutes of Health regulations and standards.
Preprocedure Preparation
Twelve domestic pigs weighing a mean of 41.4 kg (range, 29.8–46.4 kg) were sedated with an intramuscular injection of a
Results
Transarterial hepatic arterial embolization was technically successful in all 12 animals. The animals that received 16 mL or 28 mL of the embolic mixture (n = 8) recovered from anesthesia without complications. However, all animals in the final group that received 40 mL of the mixture (n = 4) never fully recovered from anesthesia, remaining somnolent and unable to ambulate, and consequently had to be euthanized.
The preprocedural weight of animals ranged from 29.8 to 46.4 kg (mean, 41.4 kg), and
Discussion
Cirrhosis is the common final pathway of sustained and repetitive injury and healing responses to liver insults and is complicated by the development of portal hypertension and hepatocellular carcinoma (16). An animal model of cirrhosis would be useful in validating the modalities that monitor liver fibrosis and test minimally invasive procedures (17).
Our results here demonstrate that a single session of transcatheter hepatic arterial embolization with 16 or 28 mL of a 3:1 mixture of iodized
References (22)
Antifibrotic therapy in chronic liver disease
Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol
(2005)New therapies in hepatitis C virus and chronic liver disease: antifibrotics
Clin Liver Dis
(2006)- et al.
Attempted induction of chronic portal venous hypertension with polyvinyl alcohol particles in swine
J Vasc Interv Radiol
(1997) - et al.
Transarterial versus transhepatic portal vein embolization to induce selective hepatic hypertrophy: a comparative study in swine
J Vasc Interv Radiol
(2007) - et al.
An algorithm for the grading of activity in chronic hepatitis CThe METAVIR Cooperative Study Group
Hepatology
(1996) - et al.
Ethiodized oil emulsions in hepatic microcirculation: in vivo microscopy in animal models
Acad Radiol
(1997) - et al.
Improved outcome of adult recipients with a high model for end-stage liver disease score and a small-for-size graft
Liver Transpl
(2009) Digestive diseases in the United States: epidemiology and impact
(1994)- et al.
Reversal of hepatic fibrosis—fact or fantasy?
Hepatology
(2006) - et al.
Animal models of portal hypertension
World J Gastroenterol
(2006)
Two rat models of hepatic fibrosisA morphologic and molecular comparison
Lab Invest
Cited by (19)
Hepatic Hypertrophy in Normal and Cirrhotic Livers Following Portal Vein Embolization: Comparative Assessment of 2 Different Embolic Regimens in a Large Animal Model
2023, Journal of Vascular and Interventional RadiologyCharacterization of an Inducible Alcoholic Liver Fibrosis Model for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Investigation in a Transgenic Porcine Tumorigenic Platform
2018, Journal of Vascular and Interventional RadiologyCitation Excerpt :Post-infusion arteriograms were not performed. Dosing of the administered ethanol and ethiodized oil emulsion was derived by dividing the 28-mL maximally tolerated dose by mean pig weight reported in the study of Avritscher et al (6). Upon completion of the infusion, all devices were removed, and hemostasis was achieved via manual compression.
Distribution of Connective Tissue in the Male and Female Porcine Liver: Histological Mapping and Recommendations for Sampling
2018, Journal of Comparative PathologyCitation Excerpt :Moreover, fibrosis is an important part of porcine liver diseases, such as in pigs suffering from biliary and peribiliary cysts (Komine et al., 2008) or swine hepatitis E (Lee et al., 2010). Summarizing the present literature, porcine liver fibrosis and cirrhosis of different aetiologies can be used as a model for human liver fibrosis and cirrhosis (Avritscher et al., 2011). In the porcine liver, fibrosis is usually induced by CCl4 (Zhang et al., 2009), by alcohol (Lee et al., 2017), by a high-fat diet or by a Western-style diet (Panasevich et al., 2018) or by using pentoxifylline (Peterson and Neumeister, 1996).
Percutaneous intraportal application of adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells using a balloon occlusion catheter in a porcine model of liver fibrosis
2013, Journal of Vascular and Interventional RadiologyCitation Excerpt :Transcatheter hepatic arterial embolization with a 3:1 Ethiodol and ethanol mixture (mean, 21 mL; range, 8–41 mL) was technically successful in all 11 animals. Gross appearance of the liver was consistent with the findings of a previous study using this model (22). The explanted livers exhibited discoloration and atrophy of hepatic lobes with compensatory hypertrophy of the less involved segments.
Catheter-based stem cell delivery for liver repair: Getting it there is half the battle
2013, Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology
Research for this study was supported in part by a grant from the John S. Dunn Research Foundation and by the National Institutes of Health through Support Grant CA016672 to M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
None of the authors have identified a conflict of interest.