Dolph Houben

161 New surgical technique of whole joint VCA 8 given in figure 2. Figure 2: overview whole knee allotransplantation in hind limb model; the allotransplant included +/- 3cm of the proximal tibia, +/- 3cm of distal femur with an intact knee joint including the patella (yellow) and allogenic vascular pedicle (A). The saphenous artery left undisturbed to the lower leg (C). An end-to-side anastomosis was made from the allogenic artery to the femoral artery in the recipient (C). The venous anastomosis was made in an end-to-end fashion, both anastomoses were made using an 8.0 microsuture. The cranial tibial artery was used as an autologous arteriovenous pundle into the tibia (X1). A muscluar branch of the m. biceps femorus was used as an AV- bundle into the femur (X2). The post- operative radiograph shows the final reconstruction with the intramedullary nails in place (D). Figure 3: Plain photo-graphs taken during transplantation, showing the pedicled gracilis muscle flap in normal anatomical position from a medial view (A), raised and rotated around the saphenous artery and vein from a medial view(B), further rotated around the knee allotransplant from a lateral view (C).