HOMOTRANSPLANTATION of the canine heart has been studied by many investigators over the past 60 years. Carrel and Guthrie, in 1905, were the first to report successful transplantation of a puppy heart which functioned for two hours in the neck of the recipient.1 In general, three differing surgical and physiological methods have been utilized: (1) The systemic circulation of the recipient has been used to perfuse the coronary circulation of the homotransplant. (2) The transplant's cardiac output supplies its own coronary arterial flow. (3) A donor heart, sometimes with the lungs, has been transplanted orthotopically to replace these vital organs, both anatomically and functionally.
Perfusion of the homograft coronaries via a host artery was used by Carrel,1 Mann and co-workers2 in 1933, Marcus et al3 in 1951, Downie4 in 1953, Wesolowski5 in 1953, Sayegh and Creech6 in 1959, Reemtsma et al7 in