Acute but not chronic tempol treatment increases ischemic and reperfusion ventricular arrhythmias in open-chest rats.

The effect of the chronic and acute antioxidant tempol (superoxide dismutase mimetic) treatment on cardiac ischemic tolerance was investigated in adult male Wistar rats. The first experimental group was given tempol (1 mM) in drinking water for three weeks, the second group received tempol (100 mg/kg, i.v.) 10 min before test ischemia, and control rats received the same volume of solvent. Anesthetized open-chest animals (pentobarbitone 60 mg/kg, i.p.) were subjected to 20-min coronary artery occlusion and 3-h reperfusion for infarct size determination. Ventricular arrhythmias were monitored during ischemia and at the beginning (5 min) of reperfusion. Acute tempol administration shifted the time profile of ischemic arrhythmias to the later phase and significantly increased the number of ischemic and reperfusion premature ventricular complexes, respectively (504 +/- 127 and 84 +/- 21) as compared with the chronically treated group (218 +/- 36 and 47 +/- 7) or controls (197 +/- 26 and 31 +/- 7). Acute tempol-treated rats exhibited a tendency to decrease infarct size (P = 0.087). The mechanism of proarrhythmic tempol action during ischemia and reperfusion remains to be elucidated.