Intravenous insulin therapy during lung resection does not affect lung function or surfactant proteins

BACKGROUND The surgical resection of lung disrupts glucose homeostasis and causes hyperglycemia, as in any other major surgery or critical illness. We performed a prospective study where we carefully lowered hyperglycemia by insulin administration during the surgery, and for the first time we monitored immediate insulin effects on lung physiology and gene transcription. METHODS The levels of blood gases (pH, pCO2, pO2, HCO3-, HCO3- std, base excess, FiO2, and pO2/FiO2) were measured at the beginning of surgery, at the end of surgery, and two hours after. Samples of healthy lung tissue surrounding the tumour were obtained during the surgery, anonymized and sent for subsequent blinded qPCR analysis (mRNA levels of surfactant proteins A1, A2, B, C and D were measured). This study was done on a cohort of 64 patients who underwent lung resection. Patients were randomly divided, and half of them received insulin treatment during the surgery. RESULTS We demonstrated for the first time that insulin administered intravenously during lung resection does not affect levels of blood gases. Furthermore, it does not induce immediate changes in the expression of surfactant proteins. CONCLUSION According to our observations, short insulin treatment applied intravenously during resection does not affect the quality of breathing.