BACKGROUND Ulinastatin has anti-inflammatory properties and protects organs from ischemia/reperfusion-induced injury. The aim of this study was to investigate whether ulinastatin provides a protective effect on a regional myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury in an in vivo rat heart model and to determine whether the anti-inflammatory response is related to its myocardial protective effect. ...

The hormone relaxin has been shown to cause coronary vasodilation and to prevent ischemia/reperfusion-induced cardiac injury in rodents. This study provides evidence that relaxin, used as an adjunctive drug to coronary reperfusion, reduces the functional, biochemical, and histopathological signs of myocardial injury in an in vivo swine model of heart ischemia/reperfusion, currently used to test...

BACKGROUND Infusion of adrenomedullin (AM) has beneficial hemodynamic effects in patients with heart failure. However, the effect of AM on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion remains unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS Male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to a 30-minute period of ischemia induced by ligation of the left coronary artery. They were randomized to receive AM, AM plus wortmannin (a phosphat...

BACKGROUND In recent years, various beneficial roles of human atrial natriuretic peptide (hANP) have been demonstrated in the internal medicine and surgical fields. However, direct myocardial protection by hANP against myocardial ischemic reperfusion injury has been rarely investigated. Thus, we investigated it from aspects of cardiac surgery. METHODS Twenty-four pigs underwent extracorporeal...

Since the earliest days of the thrombolytic era, maximizing myocardial salvage by reperfusion of the myocardial region at risk for myocardial infarction has been the most important immediate objective in management of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) (1). The roles of time to reperfusion and collateral flow to the infarct territory and their impact on early and late post-infar...

Acute myocardial infarction is a frequent and disabling disease. Ischemic postconditioning, consisting of repeated brief cycles of ischemia-reperfusion performed immediately after reperfusion following a prolonged ischemic insult, dramatically reduces infarct size in experimental models. A recent clinical study demonstrated that repeated brief episodes of inflation-deflation of the angioplasty ...

BACKGROUND Activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) plays an important role in apoptotic cell death. The role of p38 MAPK in myocardial injury caused by ischemia/reperfusion, an extreme stress to the heart, is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS Studies were performed with isolated, Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts. Ischemia alone caused a moderate but transient increase in p38 MA...

BACKGROUND Free radical injury contributes to cardiac dysfunction during ischemia-reperfusion. Detoxification of free radicals requires maintenance of reduced glutathione (GSH) by NADPH. The principal mechanism responsible for generating NADPH and maintaining GSH during periods of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion remains unknown. Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), the rate-limiting enzyme...

PURPOSE Halothane offers protection against the reperfusion injury of the myocardium. This study compared sevoflurane with halothane in its potential to modulate the effects of acute severe ischemia and reperfusion on the myocardium. METHODS Experiments were conducted on 25 pigs. Anesthesia consisted of thiopental, vecuronium and fentanyl. The lungs were mechanically ventilated with oxygen an...