GS19 *THE ANTIOXIDANT STATUS OF AN INFLAMMATORY DISEASE AS MEASURED BY CYCLIC VOLTAMMETRY

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether serum antioxidant capacity measured by the electrochemical technique of cyclic voltammetry (CV) could resolve differences in severity of the inflammatory disease acute pancreatitis.Methods: Experimental animal study using male Wistar rats. Group 1 (baseline), immediate euthanasia with no surgical interventions; Group 2 (sham), identical surgical procedures to the pancreatitis groups but no intraductal infusion; Groups 3–5, acute pancreatitis induced by intraductal infusion of 3%, 4% or 5% sodium taurocholate respectively. Terminal blood and pancreatic tissue samples for CV, biochemistry and histology were collected at 12 h (Groups 2–5).Results: There was a significant positive correlation of the first serum cyclic voltametric peak current maxima (CVi1) with pancreatic histological severity (Spearman r = 0.51, p = 0.007) as well as with a number of other markers of systemic disease severity, notably bicarbonate (r =−0.57, p = 0.002), base excess (r =−0.65, p < 0.001) urea (r =−0.68, p < 0.001) and calcium (r =−0.60, p = 0.008). CVi1 was superior at indicating the severity of the disease state compared to a standard method of total antioxidant capacity measurement.Conclusions: CV was found to be a simple, technique that could differentiate between the physiological and histological severities of acute pancreatitis. Further clinical studies are now justified to determine if point‐of‐care CV offers prognostic and treatment‐monitoring advantages for severe acute inflammatory illnesses within the critical care setting.