Abstract 318: Improvement In Cerebral Blood Flow Assessed By A Laser Speckle Imaging After Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation In Rats

Abstract

Introduction: The effect of extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) on recovery of cerebral blood flow (CBF) after achieving a return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) has been undetermined. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of ECPR on the changes of CBF post-ROSC in a rat model of prolonged cardiac arrest (CA) and ECPR. Methods and Results: Adult Sprague-Dawley male rats (400- 500g) were subjected to 20-min of asphyxia CA whereupon animals were mechanically ventilated and resuscitated by conventional manual chest compression (CCPR, n = 6) or ECPR using venous-arterial cardiopulmonary bypass (ECPR, n = 5). Epinephrine was (20 μg/kg) intravenously injected once during CCPR but not ECPR. In the ECPR group, cardiopulmonary bypass was weaned 30 min after ROSC. ROSC was defined as achieving a mean arterial pressure > 60 mmHg. Serial changes in CBF were measured at baseline and 2 h after ROSC using the laser speckle imaging system. There was no difference in time to CA and time to ROSC as well as hemodynamics for 2 h after ROSC between the two groups. Representative CBF images at 0, 10, 60, and 120 min after ROSC are shown in Fig. 1A. As expected, CCPR resulted in a hyperemic phase at 10 min and then a hypoperfusion phase (~ 50 % of CBF reduction from baseline) at 60 min or later after ROSC. In the ECPR group, CBF maintained at baseline level even at 60 and 120 min after ROSC. Further, CBF levels at 60 and 120 min after ROSC were markedly higher in the ECPR group than in the CCPR group ( Fig. 1B ). Conclusions: Our data using laser speckle imaging suggests that ECPR is likely to improve CBF shortly after ROSC compared to CCPR.