Ischaemic preconditioning is a powerful innate adaptive phenomenon whereby brief periods of sublethal ischaemia result in marked tolerance to subsequent lethal ischaemia. Halogenated anaesthetics have been shown to mimic ischaemic preconditioning, modifying and attenuating ischaemia reperfusion injury. This review aims to present the current animal and human data, discuss the possible mechanism...

Mitochondria play an important role in regulating the life and death of cells. They provide the cell with energy via oxidative phosphorylation but can quickly turn into death-promoting organelles in response to stress by disrupting adenosine triphosphate synthesis, releasing pro-death proteins, and producing reactive oxygen species. Due to their high-energy requirement, cardiac myocytes are abu...

Background Cardiac MRI (CMR) provides unique characterization of myocardial injury post acute ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI). It is the gold standard for non-invasive measurement of Infarct Size (IS) and tissue perfusion during STEMI. Microvascular obstruction describes suboptimal tissue perfusion despite restoration of flow in the infarct-related artery (IRA). IS and MVO are indepe...

Angiogenesis is controlled by anti-angiogenic factors as well as by angiogenic factors, such as VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) and HGF (hepatocyte growth factor). Endostatin, a potent endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor, is known to inhibit endothelial proliferation and suppress tumour growth. However, to date, little is known about the pathophysiology of endostatin in ischaemia/reperf...

Reperfusion following ischaemia results in endothelial and parenchymal injury through a complex cascade of events. This often occurs in human liver transplantation as well as with major liver resections and is referred to as Ischaemia Reperfusion Injury (IRI). Ischaemic Preconditioning (IPC) is an adaptive response in which tolerance to prolonged ischaemia is induced in a target organ by prior ...