the relationship between vitamin e plasma and bal concentrations, sod activity and ventilatory support measures in critically ill patients

vitamin e is a potent reactive oxygen metabolites (rom) scavenger. it is a lipid-soluble vitamin and its main function is to protect polyunsaturated fatty acids against oxidative stress. twenty-five mechanically ventilated intensive care unit (icu) adult patients participated in a prospective randomized clinical trial receiving either placebo (10 patients) or 3 im doses (1000 iu each) of vitamin e (15 patients). we determined plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage (bal) fluid concentrations of vitamin e and superoxide dismutase (sod). among these 25 patients, there were 14 men and 11 women, aged 63.16 ±15.48 years (mean ± sd; range = 33 to 87 years). vitamin e supplementation resulted in significant differences in plasma and bal vitamin e concentrations between the two groups (p-value = 0.01, 0.01), decrease in sod activities (not differ significantly in plasma (p-value = 0.23)), but with significant differences in bal (p-value = 0.016) and progressive reduction in acute physiology and chronic health evaluation ii (apache ii) (p-value = 0.52) and sequential organ failure assessment (sofa) (p-value = 0.008) score in vitamin e group. from the results of this study, it seems that supplementation of vitamin e as a potent antioxidant, along with other supportive measures, can be beneficial in decreasing sod total activity, rom production and risk of organ failure in critically ill patients.