Hello.
I´ve been practicing myocardial infarction induction in mice for three months approximately, but just a few of them has been left alive since I can check the infarcted area using Evan´s blue. Now we´re performing this protocol in the mice that we´re interested on, we have realized that some of the mice dead a few days (3-5 days) after the surgery. When we opened the dead mice, we observed a blood clot in the thoracic cavity around the lungs and the heart, although I didn´t break any near vessel and there were no bleed out when we closed and finished the surgery. So my question is ¿is this bleeding the cause of the death or there can be another reason?
Thank you
Cristina
To Cristina Pogontke ,
I did some practice on this mice model before, from my konwledge, I suppose it maybe the cause of the misoperation on the infarcted area of the mice heart( heart rupture causing the bleeding, heart dysfunction, arrhythmia as unavoidable complications afterwards, etc), therefore, please take attention on your operative skills and increase your proficiency degree, of cause, it is hard to ignore any error and miss probability.
Hi Cristina, I'm collaborating in mice surgeries by the way. I think about some explanations:
1. Iatogrenic lessions in the main airway during ventilation assistance= Which type of ventilation assistance are you giving the animals? are you using traquea or oral intubation? There is any abnormal finding during the surgery in heamodinamics parameters?
2. Maybe damage in chest wall vessels= Are you accessing the chest cavity through lateral thoracotomy?
3. Needle too deep, enter the cardiac chamber= Are you generating a local infarction by ligation of a coronary artery?
I hope you find your answer! Best regards!
Cristina,
Which model of MI are you using? Are you performing a full open chest procedure or the newer method of "popping" the heart out of the intercostal space? Are you sure you are evacuating all of the air out of the chest cavity before finalizing suturing? If any air is left in the chest cavity or the lung is damaged by tool or pressure it can lead to a pneumothorax which will ultimately lead to death. Pulmonary embolism could also develop in small number of animals. The normal morbidity after MI is greatest in mice from 3-7 days after surgery. This is usually the result of direct cardiac rupture and you should be able to see this upon dissection.
More information of your method would be helpful to answer your question efficiently.
Renee