Normothermic ischemic cardiac arrest and reperfusion of the isolated working rat heart: Effect of carbocromene pretreatment on functional and metabolic recovery

Abstract

Normothermic Ischemic Cardiac Arrest and Reperfusion of the Isolated Working Rat Heart: Effect of Carbocromene Pretreatment on Functional and Metabolic Recovery. This paper describes the effect of carbocromene pretreatment on the functional recovery of the isolated rat heart submitted to ischemic cardiac arrest and reperfused. In a previous study we showed that hearts isolated from rats which had been pretreated for 8 days with a daily oral administration of carbocromene at 15 mg/kg body weight, exhibit higher mechanical performances (aortic output, coronary flow, cardiac work) than hearts isolated from untreated animals. This was associated with a greater tissue content of high energy phosphates and glycogen. In the present work, carbocromene-pretreated hearts are submitted to 30 minutes of normothermic no-flow ischemia after being arrested by a 2 min high potassium, substrate-free perfusion, containing 2 mg/l carbocromene (cardioplegic solution). After reperfusion, post-ischemic recovery of function is significantly better in treated hearts as compared to control untreated preparations submitted to a similar protocol. Although no significant difference can be demonstrated in the metabolic status of either groups of preparations after 30 min of reperfusion, lactate dehydrogenase release, taken as an index of myocardial cell damage, is significantly reduced in the carbocromene-treated group. In view of these results it is suggested that carbocromene pretreatment and/or the addition of carbocromene to cardioplegic solutions could be beneficial in improving functional recovery after temporary ischemic cardiac arrest.