【Animal Modeling】-Other congenital heart disease models in miniature pigs

  1. Myocardial hypertrophy model Guerreiro et al. established a model of growing pig myocardial hypertrophy using surgical methods. The experiment used 4-month-old pigs to establish aortic-pulmonary shunt through surgery, and then reared to 7 months of age. In 4 weeks after the operation, the pulmonary artery pressure increased by an average of 118%, and the pulmonary blood flow reached 63%. By 7 months of age, pulmonary artery pressure and pulmonary blood flow reached 170% and 53% of those in normal control pigs, respectively. The dynamic observation at different time points after the operation showed that the heart weight increased, the left and right ventricular myocardium was hypertrophy, and the histological observation also found obvious myocardial hyperplasia. The author believes that this model is a model of human congenital abnormalities leading to myocardial hypertrophy during growth.

  2. Low pulmonary blood flow model Xuegang et al. established a low pulmonary blood flow congenital heart disease model. In the experiment, piglets aged 1 to 2 months were used to simulate pulmonary valve defect (ASD) by pulmonary artery ligation to establish a low pulmonary blood flow model. In the mild to moderate stenosis group, pulmonary artery ligation produced systolic blood pressure attenuation of 20-30mmHg, severe stenosis group systolic blood pressure attenuation ≥30-50mmHg, control group sham operation. The results show that the pulmonary artery ligation method can successfully establish an ASD model, and can be used in the pathology and treatment of human congenital pulmonary valve defects.