Laryngeal Transplantation in the Canine by End-to-end Anastomosis of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Branches

반회신경분지의 단단문합에 의한 개의 후두이식

Instead of brilliant advancement of the organ transplantation in the medical fields, laryngeal transplantation still has couple of problems to be solved before trial on human. Among them functional restoration of the implanted larynx is the most important point. Recent advancement in animal model studies showed possibility of solving the main problem. Eighteen cases of canine laryngeal transplantation in mongrel dogs were done in this department. One cranial artery and two external jugular veins were connected. External and internal branches of the superior layngeal nerve and anterior and posterior branches of the recurrent laryngeal nerve were connected individually. Only two dogs have lived longer than 4 weeks(4weeks, and 10 1/2weeks) and they died unfortunately due to asphixia caused by obstruction of the cannula. Thirteen dogs only lived five days through 15 days. The main causes of the failure were obstruction of the connecting vein, pharyngocutaneous fistula and the wound infection. Although the result was not good enough to evaluate the functional restoration of the implanted larynx, the implanted larynges from the two dogs lived longer than minimum criteria of long term survival(4 weeks) were relatively good in shape at the time of autopsy. This program will be continued after renovation of the animal lab. facilities.