The aim of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of bovine pericardium (BP) patch graft to treat arterial defects created in the femoral artery of dogs, compared to the cephalic vein autograft (CVA) on both side of the arteries. Twenty mongrel dogs (eight males and twelve females), were used and disbuted in two groups of ten animals (I and II), to be re-operated on 7th and 30th post operative days, respstively. Clinical and histolgical data analysis were done using the chi-square an exact Fisher test (a£ 0,05). Significant alterations wasn't found in the clinical examinations, independetly, of the kin of graft used and post operative observation period. It wasn't found any significant difference between the BP and CVA grafts in the histological analyses concerning the presence of inflammatory cell infiltration and mural thrombi that predominated on the 7th post operative day. Whilst, the presence of granulation tisseu, myofibroblastic plaque and endothelization predominated on the 30th post operative day. The presence of necrosis was found significant for both BP and CVA, on the 7th post operative day, being higher for BP. Calcification of the grafts was not observed. A significant reaction of strange body kind to the polypropylene yarn take place on the 30th PO for both grafts. These results sugested that BP was efficient as artery substitute for dogs, which was comparable to CVA, for the settled period of observation.
Bioprosthesis; Femoral artery; Pericardium; Vein; Dogs
