Abstract
Elastic fibers in neo-arterial walls of polyester vascular prostheses were examined under both light and electron microscopes from 1 to 1240 days after implantation in the thoracic aortae of 202 dogs.
Elastic fibers were noticed in the close neighbourhood of smooth muscle cells by means of transmission electron microscope. By light microscopic observation of specimens stained by resorcin-fuchsin, the fibers were found only in the smooth muscle cell layer beneath endothelial cells. The earliest appearance of elastic fibers was near smooth muscis cells at an anastomotic line of a specimen removed 18 days after implantation. These results supported a theory that elastic fibers were synthesized by smooth muscle cells. Under light microscopic observation of cross section, three dimentional network structure of the elastic fibers could be observed and the arrangement of curved and long fibers of them were found in rows uniformly parallel to the direction of smooth muscle cells, whose pattern of arrangement was dependent on the tension to which they were subjected. The cooperative action of elastic fibers and smooth muscle cells seems to result in contractions that perform their characteristic function of neo-arterial walls, and these results indicate the biological mechanism of adaptation of the living body to the vascular prosthesis.
