[Effects of a retrograde arterial perfusion by arteriovenous anastomosis on normal and postischemic skeletal muscles. Clinical observations and morphologic studies of the hind leg of the rat].

Arterio-venous anastomosis were recommended by some authors for tens of years especially in the revascularisation of acute and chronic ischemic extremities. A retrograde arterial perfusion was produced by microsurgical end-to-end anastomosis of the proximal femoral artery with the distal femoral vein in the pelvic extremity of rat in an experimental study. The morphologic consequences of the arterio-venous anastomosis were investigated with reference to the normal skeletal muscle structure and the muscular recovery phase after acute ischemic damage. The light microscopic changes of the muscular morphology were served as indirect proof of the effect, because the skeletal muscles showed the slightest tolerance in face of ischemia of all tissues of an extremity. The arterio-venous anastomosis for prophylaxis of postischemic skeletal muscle damages appears unfit in this experiment similar to clinical conditions. The light microscopic investigations of the skeletal muscles demonstrated an involution of the pathohistologic changes in combination of acute ischemic loading and adjunctive arteriovenous anastomosis.