2004 Grant Recipient

Percutaneous Interventional Hindlimb Model and Validation of Computed Tomography Angiography on Quantitation of Arteriogenesis in Rats Treated with Autologous Bone Marrow Cells

Zhen W. Zhuang, MD Dartmouth - Hitchcock Medical Center Surgical bypass and percutaneous intervention have become standard therapies to restore blood flow to ischemic tissues and organs for more than three decades. These interventional therapies, however, are limited by restenosis of native vessels and graft occlusions over time.

Furthermore, neither of these therapies is an option for patients with severe or extensive vascular pathology. Restoration of blood flow through angiogenesis and arteriogenesis may provide �biological revascularization� in these patients. Cell therapy has emerged as a promising strategy for biological revascularization, but progress has been hampered by a lack of adequate animal models and a paucity of non-invasive tools to assess efficacy in these models. Typically, many therapies are tested in a rat model of surgically induced hind-limb ischemia. In this study, Dr. Zhuang will develop a non-surgical model of rodent hind-limb ischemia and will validate 2-dimensional computed tomography angiography (2D CTA) and 3D reconstruction as means of quantitation of arteriogenesis.