Donated Vascular Tissue

What is Vascular Tissue?

Vascular Tissue IconThe vascular system is the body's network of blood vessels. Vascular tissues include arteries, which carry oxygen-rich blood from your heart to your tissues and organs, and veins, which carry the blood and waste products back to your heart.

The saphenous veins, femoral vessels, and the aortoiliac artery are vascular tissue that can be donated after death and used for transplant.

How is Donated Vascular Tissue Used?

Donated vascular tissue is commonly used in surgical procedures to restore, replace, or supplement poorly functioning, diseased, or missing vessels.

Donated saphenous veins are frequently used to restore circulation to the lower extremities caused by peripheral vascular disease and as coronary artery bypass grafts. 

Femoral vessels are often used as superficial dialysis shunts in patients undergoing chronic dialysis treatment. 

Grafts created from the aortoiliac artery are commonly used as a direct replacement, or bypass, of the patient's aortoiliac vessels in cases of severe clotting or abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Find establishments accredited for vascular tissue.