[Distal blood pressure changes after ligation of the femoral artery or vein in the rat].

In the rat, immediately after ligation of the femoral artery below the profundus branch, the intraluminal pressure at the distal part dropped from 15.80kPa to 4.82kPa, and continued to decrease even after seven days. For the femoral vein, the distal intraluminal pressure rose from 0.67kPa to 3.91kPa in one minute. After one hour it dropped slowly and reached 1.25kPa after 24 hours. After seven days it was 0.74kPa. The author consider that it is unsuitable for the distal cut end of an artery or a vein to be used as the feeding vessel in microvascular free tissue transfer, because lowered blood pressure might result in inadequate tissue perfusion. When a big artery of limb was injured, it should be repaired no matter whether the collateral branch can maintain the distal circulation of the limb or not.