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ischaemic preconditioning of the human heart. - Leicester Research ...

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clearly insufficient to induce myocardial injury. Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, during this short<br />

period <strong>of</strong> sample processing <strong>the</strong> muscles are not preconditioned when subjected to a<br />

long period <strong>of</strong> ischaernia.<br />

Studies on Ischaernia:<br />

To <strong>the</strong> best <strong>of</strong> my knowledge, <strong>the</strong> present studies are <strong>the</strong> first in charactensing <strong>the</strong><br />

response <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>human</strong> myocardium to various degrees <strong>of</strong> ischaernic insult. I have<br />

demonstrated<br />

that a period <strong>of</strong> simulated ischaernia <strong>of</strong> only 30 min already induces<br />

significant tissue injury, as measured by MTT reduction and LDH leakage, and that<br />

leng<strong>the</strong>ning <strong>the</strong> ischaernic time to 2 hr results in a loss <strong>of</strong> viable tissue <strong>of</strong> more than<br />

75% and massive LDH leakage. it is worth noting that <strong>the</strong> reduction in oxygen<br />

consumption observed after 30 min <strong>of</strong> ischaemla was not fur<strong>the</strong>r decreased by 60 or<br />

120 min <strong>of</strong> ischaernia. This suggests that in fact <strong>the</strong> remaining viable tissue<br />

augments oxygen consumption when compared to aerobically perfused tissue or to<br />

tissue subjected to shorter periods <strong>of</strong> ischaernia. This phenomenon <strong>of</strong> oxygen<br />

sparing effect after ischaemia has been described in various animal preparations<br />

[43,73,162,184] suggesting that it may not be a reliable index <strong>of</strong> tissue damage.<br />

It is evident from <strong>the</strong>se studies and, not unexpected, that although <strong>the</strong> atfial<br />

myocardium aerobically incubated for 24 hr is still viable it becomes more<br />

susceptible to <strong>ischaemic</strong> injury. This observation is <strong>of</strong> particular relevance when<br />

investigating <strong>the</strong> delayed effects <strong>of</strong> <strong>ischaemic</strong> syndromes such as <strong>the</strong> second window<br />

<strong>of</strong> ischaernic <strong>preconditioning</strong>.<br />

53

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