Current vascular allograft procurement, cryopreservation and transplantation techniques in the Asan Medical Center Tissue Bank
Shin Hwang, Ju Hee Bae, In-Ok Kim, Jung-Ja Hong
Abstract
Vascular allografts are important materials to facilitate partial liver graft reconstruction in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT). Tissue banks are essential in providing vascular allografts used in LDLT. This study is intended to present the details of vascular allograft procurement, cryopreservation, and transplantation techniques, which are currently used in the Asan Medical Center Tissue Bank according to the standard operating procedure (SOP). Vascular allografts can be procured from the deceased organ donors or tissue donors. In practice, the majority of vessel donors are deceased multiorgan donors, thus the vessel grafts are harvested following multiorgan donation. The vascular allografts are cryopreserved according to the SOP and stored at -150C in the vapor phase of liquid nitrogen. They can be kept for 10 years at the tissue bank. For clinical use, the cryopreserved vessel grafts are melted rapidly. At our institution, the majority of cryopreserved vascular allografts have been used for LDLT operations and some of them are also used for various hepatobiliary and vascular surgeries. In conclusion, the supply of vascular allografts through cryopreservation at the institutional tissue bank is an essential preparation to facilitate adult LDLT operations requiring various vascular reconstruction that use patches or conduits.