1 Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Army General Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece ; 2 School of Medicine, University of Patras, Patras, Greece.
J Thorac Dis. 2014 Oct;6(10):1506-12. doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2014.09.32.
The importance of the role of bronchial arteries is notable in modern days thoracic surgery. The significance of their anastomoses with adjusted structures has not yet been sufficiently rated, especially in cases of haemoptysis, heart-lung transplantations and treatment of aneurysms of the thoracic aorta. The need of a thorough study is more relevant than ever and appropriate laboratory animals are required.
We review the literature in order to highlight the ideal experimental animal for the implementation of pilot programs relative to the bronchial circulation. A comparative analysis of the anatomy of the bronchial arterial system in humans along with these of pigs, dogs, rats, and birds, as being the most commonly used laboratory animals, is presented in details.
The pig has the advantage that the broncho-oesophageal artery usually originates from the aorta as a single vessel, which makes the recognition and dissection of the artery easy to perform. In dogs, there is significant anatomical variation of the origin of the bronchial arteries. In rats, bronchial artery coming from the aorta is a rare event while in birds the pattern of the bronchial artery tree is clearly different from the human analog.
The pig is anatomically and physiologically suited for experimental studies on the bronchial circulation. The suitable bronchial anatomy and physiology along with the undeniable usefulness of the pig in experimental research and the low maintenance cost make the pig the ideal model for experiments in bronchial circulation.
在现代胸外科中，支气管动脉的作用至关重要。其与调节结构的吻合的意义尚未得到充分评价，尤其是在咯血、心肺移植和治疗胸主动脉瘤的情况下。彻底研究的必要性比以往任何时候都更加突出，需要合适的实验动物。
我们查阅文献，以突出支气管循环相关试点方案实施的理想实验动物。详细比较了人类与猪、狗、鼠和鸟类（最常用的实验动物）的支气管动脉系统解剖结构。
猪的优势在于，支气管-食管动脉通常作为单一血管起源于主动脉，这使得动脉的识别和解剖变得容易。在狗中，支气管动脉的起源存在显著的解剖学变异。在大鼠中，来自主动脉的支气管动脉是一种罕见的情况，而鸟类的支气管动脉树模式明显不同于人类的类似物。
猪在支气管循环的实验研究中在解剖学和生理学上都非常适合。合适的支气管解剖结构和生理学，加上猪在实验研究中的不可否认的实用性和低维护成本，使猪成为支气管循环实验的理想模型。
